Issue No. 896

A Short History of the Political Party in Somalia

Somalia has endured somewhat of a tortured history of political parties. By the end of the 1960s, and the country's short-lived decade of democracy, national politics had descended into a morass of dozens of clan-based parties vying for parliamentary seats. For many Somalis, the military coup of Siyaad Barre in 1969 initially appeared as a welcome relief, putting an end at least to the internecine and corrupt squabbling of clan-centred politics. But after years of brutal one-party authoritarian rule and the eventual descent into state collapse in the early 1990s, the political party faded into irrelevance, just one victim of a much broader decay that has left indelible scars on Somalia's political settlement. 

Today, the 'political party' is a rather amorphous term in Somalia, ranging from the one-man band of Abdirahman Abdishakur's opposition 'Wadajir Party' all the way to the quagmire that is the ruling 'Justice and Solidarity Party' (JSP) led by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. But with the exception of Somaliland, few parties possess anything resembling an institutional foundation, in part due to the nature of the political conflict in Somalia. Here, political conflict remains based around competing elites activating kinship identities for parochial interests, with few leaders able to project influence beyond the boundaries of their constituencies. 

As such, parties are rarely vehicles battling over ideology or policy, but rather are short-lived coalitions built around elite bargains against the backdrop of clan-centred rationale. Furthermore, in the context of Somalia's indirect elections and the absence of a 'left-right' divide that exists in many democracies, there is arguably little need to join a party when one can simply run as an independent or align electoral ambitions with a less rigid ideological bloc. And so, despite the perpetual rhetoric of a transition back toward multi-party politics—and its inclusion within the Provisional Constitution—the 'system' remains both brittle and highly volatile.

After nearly five decades, the federal government officially reintroduced the political party in 2016, passing the Political Parties Law in a nominal gesture to have Somalia move away from clan-based politics. The Electoral Commission subsequently registered dozens of provisional political parties, sometimes referred to as 'political associations.' But so persistent has been Villa Somalia's meddling in which parties and movements are allowed to register, that the term 'party' itself has been rendered almost meaningless. Indeed, the brazen politicisation of the Electoral Commission, under the auspices of the Interior Ministry, has led most senior opposition politicians to reject out of hand the arbitrary restrictions intended to prevent themselves, parties or movements from contesting next year's presidential elections. According to the Electoral Commission, as of September, only 14 political associations—most led by minor opposition politicians or those affiliated with the government—were registered as political parties, and thus able to contest the upcoming district council elections in Mogadishu.

These deep political cleavages and the absence of structured ideology in many parties have been evident in the campaign, or lack thereof, for the imminent polls in Mogadishu. Centred on personality and clan, the first apparent direct votes in decades are not being fought over vision; few serious proposals for Mogadishu's governance, services, or security have surfaced. There have been no major TV debates, no gladhanding of children, no manifestos published, and stump speeches are few and far between. This is, of course, partly a reflection of parties' institutional weaknesses, a lack of support for building the capacity and networks of these associations and movements. 

But much of this has also been due to the historic indirect nature of Somalia's elections—it is not the public that politicians must convince (or bribe) of their worthiness to rule, but rather clans and one another. And so even while thousands will go to the polls at the month's end, the legitimacy of these polls is already in doubt, with reports eking out that many councillors have effectively been pre-selected by the ruling JSP. Even this platform has expressed little vision for the country beyond implementing a skewed one-person, one-vote system, with JSP representing little more than a centralised vehicle geared for returning Hassan Sheikh to power and papering over fundamental political fractures.

But more broadly, any genuine return to multi-party politics poses several vexing questions for Somalia's political settlement, as it does in any conflict-affected society. In particular, moving away from the 4.5 clan-based system, the formula through which the seats and posts across the major and minority clans are distributed, presents an inevitable situation of 'winners' or 'losers.' In Puntland, for example, the major parties —Kaah, Mideeye, and Sincad —are inevitably centred around particular Majerteen sub-clans, squeezing out some of the more marginal constituencies. However, the proposed 'closed-list single constituency' model by the federal government for future elections would sever the link between parliamentarians and their constituents entirely, as well as tilt the system wholly in favour of the incumbents. Under the model, seats would be assigned to parties based on a percentage of the total votes cast, meaning that Darood candidates from Kismaayo could theoretically be elected due to votes cast in Mogadishu-- even if Jubaland does not participate in next year's election. In turn, representatives would not be accountable to their putative constituencies, and in the place of clan elders influencing the electoral outcome, a small cadre of party bosses would become kingmakers.

There is, however, an exception to the general rule that parties and politicians can rarely mobilise beyond their clan constituents, and that is the splintered Islamist movements in Somalia. Still, these, too, are often amorphous, divided over petty and parochial issues such as clan and power, with few other countries able to boast as many Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated movements as Somalia —Damul Jadiid, Aala Sheikh, and al-Islah, to name a few. These are sometimes tied to more formal parties, with senior Damul Jadiid figures, including the president, at the heart of JSP. Aala Sheikh, on the other hand, has been associated with the former President Sheikh Sherif Sheikh Ahmed's 'Himilo Qaran' party, but this is a more unstructured movement that ascribes to the teachings of the famed 20th-century Somali Islamic scholar Sheikh Mohamed Ma'alim. But no movement can perhaps mobilise as effectively across Somalia, and into Kenya and Somaliland, as Al-I'tisaam, the shadowy ideological twin of Al-Shabaab. It is difficult to overstate the reach of Al-I'tisaam, arguably the least understood yet most consequential ideological force in contemporary Somali politics.

This speaks to another reason for the near irrelevance of institutional parties in Somali politics: the iceberg-like nature of the country's political deal-making. Somalia's public only sees a performative fraction of the private bargaining that politicians engage in, with the role of Al-I'tisaam obscured or Hassan Sheikh's manoeuvring for a term extension taking place behind closed doors. One such modern mastermind of this political scheming, Fahad Yasin, has resurfaced this week, announcing his new movement in Türkiye with aspirations for 2026. 

The former spy chief and right-hand man of Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo, Yasin remains a highly controversial figure, with his tenure dogged by controversy and his affiliations with both Qatar and Al-I'tisaam. On Monday, Yasin's new vehicle —having publicly broken from Farmaajo last year —was announced, called the Midowga Haybad Qaran (Union for National Dignity). The movement's presidential contender for May 2026 is former PM Abdi Farah Shirdoon 'Saaid', with several other politicians from influential clans jumping on the bandwagon, including Galmudug ex-President Abdikarim Hussein Guled and Guled Salah Barre, a prominent rival to Puntland leader Said Deni. By placing Shirdoon as their candidate, it is a blatant attempt to undercut Farmaajo's clan base, with both hailing from the Mareehaan sub-clan of the Darood. The former president has also announced a more public return to politics this week, touching down in Mogadishu with reports he will announce his candidacy for 2026 as well. Such an alliance perhaps best encapsulates the nature of parties in Somalia today, a subtarranean affair with an eye to external patronage—most probably Qatar—for support. 

The return of multi-party politics must represent an inevitable step in the progression back towards a functioning democracy. But not all parties are created equal, and as evidenced by the end of the 1960s and the politics of the country today, a multi-party system can quickly degenerate into myopic and elite-centred contests. Looking across the fractured landscape today, the proud legacy of the Somali Youth League and Somalia's early democratic promise hangs uneasily.

The Somali Wire