Issue No. 834

Villa Somalia's latest 'sovereignty' salvo and the C6+

In the early 2010s, a select group of Somalia's allies came together to form C6+, a forum to discuss how best to support the country's state-building process. Including the African Union, Kenya, Ethiopia, the US, the UK, and the EU, the platform was intended to coordinate responses and help steer Somalia's fragile political settlement towards a more devolved, consensus-oriented model after years of riven violence. Its legacy is certainly mixed, and though it has often been accused of absenteeism, members of the C6+ did eventually help steer an accommodation in 2021 amid Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo's attempts to unilaterally extend his term. And being one of the few remaining checks on the federal government, it also happens to be Villa Somalia's latest target in its campaign to dismantle any dissenting voices.

The latest furore comes amid the latest half-hearted gesture from Villa Somalia towards national reconciliation. Yesterday, 15 June, was nominally intended to be the first of two meetings led by Villa Somalia as part of their 'national dialogue process,' now two-and-a-half months since the president first proposed it on the eve of Eid al-Fitr. However, once again, Villa Somalia sought to announce a meeting without specifying any participants or agenda items, which the national opposition had repeatedly rejected out of hand. The Somalia Salvation Council-- the broad coalition of senior cross-clan opposition politicians launched last month in Mogadishu-- again refused to participate, advocating for a single unified meeting. Consequently, it has been delayed, with a handful of handpicked loyalists initially meant to have met in the capital today. Nevertheless, it can make no fundamental progress towards resolving the political deadlock or forming any kind of coherent military coalition against Al-Shabaab.

The government's second meeting on 22 June was proposed as a National Consultative Council (NCC), which has essentially morphed into the centralising vehicle of the Justice and Solidarity Party. But nor did Villa Somalia rescind the invitation to SSC-Khaatumo leader Abdulkadir Firdhiye, which precluded Puntland President Said Abdullahi Deni from attending, nor withdraw the arrest warrant for his Jubaland counterpart, Ahmed Madoobe. It appears the plan was to hold a first meeting to rubber-stamp the approval of the rigged electoral agenda through a select number of 'civil society' representatives and government-aligned opposition leaders before the neutered NCC approved it. 

In this context, international partners, including most of the C6+ that support the federal system, met recently in the capital to ramp up pressure on Villa Somalia to end this latest charade. Ever the willing partner of the federal government, however, the EU Ambassador to Somalia, Karin Johansson, hijacked the meeting and resisted any criticism of the government. And despite the growing condemnation of her highly partisan positioning, she doubled down over the weekend and met with a handful of Villa Somalia-aligned 'civil society' representatives. With the end of her term rapidly approaching, Karin Johansson appears desperate for her legacy to be one of pulling up the international drawbridge behind her.

Apparently emboldened by Johansson's stance, State Minister for Foreign Affairs Ali Omar Bal'ad penned a 'thanks, but no thanks,' letter to James Swan, the special representative of the UN secretary-general, about the "continued relevance of the C6+ framework in the country's current context." In his wildly fanciful missive, Bal'ad asserted that Somalia has "functional constitutional institutions, a maturing democratic process, and a clear national vision for peace and development." In practice, Villa Somalia has taken a sledgehammer to all three of these elements, with the country's political and security auspices at their lowest ebb in years. But leaving that aside, it is blatant that Bal'ad's letter was intended to pre-empt potential criticism from the C6+ and attempt to discredit the body. But since the C6+ is an informal platform for donor coordination, not a platform for collective engagement, and all these countries work bilaterally with Somalia, the request for it to be dissolved reflects Villa Somalia's knee-jerk hostility to any scrutiny or narrative about the government that it cannot control-- particularly the contention that it remains transitional and without the support or control of most of the country.

Following Bal'ad's opening salvo, the president followed with an explicit endorsement of the shuttering of C6+ over the weekend. Insisting that the country's transitional period was over, Hassan Sheikh declared that decision-making authority was held entirely by the federal government– and that Somalis should place their trust in its ministries. The speech almost perfectly encapsulated the hypernationalism, blind optimism, and magical thinking that have driven Somalia to the brink. 

Meanwhile, at the opening of Puntland's parliament in Garowe, Deni offered a strong rebuke to President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, asserting that the government's proposed meetings could contribute little to reaching any kind of consensus or that such a narrow cabal could feasibly contribute to the nation's future. Instead, he offered– again– Garowe as an alternate location for hosting a national reconciliation conference, bringing together the federal member state leaders, opposition figures, and federal representatives in a single meeting. Yet this is all but certain to be rejected out of hand by Villa Somalia, which continues to insist that it alone holds the prerogative for organising such a meeting. And Deni has his own interests in playing peacemaker and curtailing the excesses of the federal government, not least his presumed ambitions for another presidential run in 2026. Within the electoral legislation passed last August are several clauses that are almost explicit in their attempt to prevent Deni from challenging Hassan Sheikh, including that any sitting official must resign 6 months before their tilt for the federal presidency. 

The federal government clearly feels emboldened that the immediate threat to Mogadishu has eased somewhat, even as the jihadists continue to lob mortars into the airport's international compound. While Jowhar has been partially encircled by the jihadists and the Hawaadle ma'awiisley in eastern Hiiraan have suffered heavy casualties, Al-Shabaab is nevertheless expected to slow its pace of operations in the coming couple of weeks. The militant group, too, has sustained considerable costs in its offensive since late February, including from the uptick in AFRICOM strikes, and is consequently expected to rest and rotate its fighters. But without the federal government engaging the Abgaal and the Habar Gidir political leaders-- and, by extension, their militias-- the prospects of pushing out and holding territory in Lower and Middle Shabelle are minimal. Instead, the federal government continues to place its hopes on foreign partners– particularly Uganda and Türkiye.

But while one-person, one-vote (OPOV) remains distinctly unfeasible, a return to the Afisyooni tent and the extraordinarily corrupt processes in 2022 and 2017 do not hold much water either. Hassan Sheikh has been able to at least somewhat tar his opponents with anti-democratic credentials, so as to overcome such criticism and present more than a collection of individuals with their own vested interests, establishing some shared political platform, including alternative electoral proposals, is critical. Elaborating a hybrid process that can combine elements of direct and indirect elections is doable, and the national opposition intends to do more to lay out alternative models to Hassan Sheikh's rigged plans to force through his re-election and/or a term extension. But this will also necessitate a highly political and subtle series of negotiations. And the onus should not be on the opposition but on the government, having been the ones to upend the few yards of political progress and development of recent years. Rather than a proud reclamation of sovereignty, the request to dismantle C6+ is instead just the latest part of the government's agenda to steamroll any resistance to its increasingly authoritarian political agenda.

The Somali Wire Team