Issue No. 891

At the end of November, the residents of Mogadishu will be able to supposedly participate in their first direct elections since the late 1960s. Though having repeatedly postponed the polls, the handpicked Independent National Electoral and Boundaries Commission (INEBC) has set the date of the district council elections for 30 November, asserting that close to a million people have registered in the capital for the grand event. And yet, as ever, with the Hawiye-dominated politics of Mogadishu still so frayed and the polls considered a flimsy attempt to foreground a term extension for President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, the exercise in direct democracy is hardly laudable.

With northern Ethiopia and Eritrea teetering on the brink of a return to full-scale conflict, the grim morass that has become Tigrayan politics shows no sign of easing. Recent days have again been dominated by accusations and counter-accusations by the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) in Mekelle and the deposed Tigray Interim Administration (TIA) leader Getachew Reda from Addis over violent clashes in Southern Tigray

Relations between Mogadishu and Hargeisa continue to plumb fresh depths. Already grimly strained by the formalisation of Villa Somalia's proxy as North Eastern State (NES) in Laas Aanood, the continuing dispute over airspace and e-visa requirements has ratcheted up again in recent days. With both pronounced expressions of Somaliland's de facto sovereignty, these issues have repeatedly been the site of Mogadishu's political vandalism across successive administrations.

On 3 October, the World Food Programme (WFP) announced a drastic 68 percent cut to emergency food assistance in Somalia — reducing coverage from 1.1 million beneficiaries to 350,000, making essential food aid available to fewer than one in ten Somalis. The decision, driven by a USD 98.3 million funding gap through March 2026, comes at a moment when Somalia’s food security crisis is accelerating at an alarming speed. Between July and December 2025, the number of people facing emergency-level hunger (IPC Phase 4) rose by 50 percent, from 624,000 to 921,000, while projections indicate that 4.4 million Somalis will face acute food insecurity by the end of the year. As the lean season approaches (November to March), WFP warns it requires at least USD 98 million to sustain reduced rations for 800,000 people until March 2026.

Despite rumours of declining health, Djibouti’s President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh’s (IOG) is maneuvering to extend his grip on power amid growing tensions over succession. The 77 year-old leader, who took power in 1999 as his uncle’s hand-picked successor, has pushed through constitutional changes that allow him to run again in 2026, with the age limit having been scrapped on 2 November – moves that have further ignited both public discontent and simmering rivalries between Djibouti’s Afar and Issa communities. Guelleh, has maintained a relatively low public profile in the past year. In late September 2024, social media reports claimed he had been hospitalised and flown to Paris due to critical illness, with some even suggesting internet outages in Djibouti aimed at suppressing news of his condition. His Finance Minister, Ilyas Moussa Dawaleh, flatly disputed reports that Guelleh was critically ill, confirming only that the president had an issue with his right knee. But these denials, along with his refusal to establish a clear succession plan, have only intensified speculation about Djibouti’s political future. As IOG clings to power, the prospect of a succession crisis looms large, threatening instability in the nation.

Armed conflict exacts a heavy and often invisible toll on both combatant and civilian minds as well as on bodies. Those affected by humanitarian emergencies often experience psychological distress, with the World Health Organisation (WHO) reporting that an estimated one in five individuals develop mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, or post-traumatic stress disorder.

Yesterday marked the fifth anniversary of the outbreak of the Tigray war and the third since the signing of the Pretoria agreement. Five years since Ethiopian federal forces, Amhara militias, and an invading Eritrean army launched a joint offensive that would leave between 300,000 and 600,000 Tigrayans dead and over 120,000 women and girls raped.

President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud (HSM) stands at a defining crossroads, for his leadership, his legacy, and Somalia’s fragile democratic future. Alarming signs point to a deliberate strategy to extend his mandate beyond constitutional limits. Villa Somalia has reportedly circulated the so-called “Zero Paper” among Somali political circles and international partners to test the waters and gauge reaction. The proposal, titled “Somalia’s Exceptional Reform Window: A Mandate to Complete the Constitution and Reset Governance,” calls for a two-year extension under the pretext of completing the constitution and finalizing reforms.

Watching Al-Shabaab's prodigious propaganda output over the past decade, one might be convinced that there was a theological gulf between the jihadists and Islamic State-Somalia (ISS). Likewise, the Daesh faction-- now scattered through the Cal-Miskaad Mountains by Puntland's Operation Hilaac-- has sought to cast their counterparts as 'gradualists', viewing the accommodation of Al-Qaeda and Al-Shabaab as a betrayal of monotheism, or tawhid. But beyond the occasional barbed statement-- and localised clashes in the Bari region-- the theological divergence between these two Somali Salafist jihadist groups is marginal, and reflects more of a battle for legitimacy and airwaves than ideological supremacy.