Issue No. 907

To borrow a quote from the Roman author, naturalist, and army commander, Pliny the Elder, "Uncertainty is the only certainty there is", or from the famous unattributed idiom of "in politics, tomorrow is a foreign country." On the eve of 2026, after one of the most torrid years in recent political memory in Somalia, looking ahead to what might come next can be a fool's errand. Nevertheless, it is worth flagging a few of the issues and dates that are likely—or sure—to dominate the coming months for Somalia.

At the forefront of all minds are the federal presidential elections, scheduled for May 2026. In the coming months, all else will be dwarfed by the polls, with no likely tangible political or military progress on the innumerable issues plaguing Somalia due to the deteriorated politics. But beyond the obligation to be held, the election format and model remain viscerally disagreed over, with the prospect of securing a settlement for the elections to be held on time already fast running out. In the face of widespread opposition, Villa Somalia continues to push its direct vote model, the 'Closed-List, Single-Constituency' system that would hand a dubious victory to the incumbent President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and sever the remaining putative links between clan-based representatives and constituents. Much of this is pure posturing, however, an attempt to force through what Villa Somalia has been privately angling for-- at least a two-year term extension for the federal president.

Both prospects have been wholeheartedly rejected by Puntland, Jubaland, and a swathe of national opposition figures within the Council for the Future of Somalia, who are now meeting today, 10 December, in Kismaayo to chart a path forward. But this is really the calm before the storm, with political pressures sure to ratchet up in the New Year as the election approaches-- as it does every cycle. One major concern is that—unlike in previous cycles—no international partner is waiting in the wings to negotiate an exit from the destructive spin, with the EU, US, and UN all wrestling with their own problems. And so the closer we inch towards the electoral date, the greater the possibility of violence and unrest in the streets of Mogadishu. But what could lead to irrevocable damage is if Villa Somalia presses ahead in the face of such widespread opposition and attempts to conduct a rigged, unilateral presidential election. 

For the opposition, a technical extension might be granted only to facilitate a fair indirect election, with the necessary architecture still to be negotiated and constructed at the state and federal levels. But if Somalia must return to an indirect model in 2026, who is in the running for the presidency? If elections do go ahead, it is likely to be a showdown similar to 2022, with the incumbent president, ex-Presidents Sheikh Sherif Sheikh Ahmed and Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo, Puntland President Said Abdullahi Deni, former PMs Hassan Ali Khaire and Abdi Farah Shirdoon, and a handful of others in the pack.

If a new president does emerge in the latter half of 2026, the contours of their agenda will have to come into shape —and fast. The new leader will be imbued with a renewed mandate, but the list of casualties of this administration and its predecessor is extensive, first and foremost, the status of federalism in the country. Other thorny issues for the new national leader include navigating the questionable legality of the Turkish hydrocarbon extraction agreement, the future of the North-Eastern State, revisions to the Provisional Constitution, and the status of land clearances in Mogadishu. This is all before coming to the badly strayed war against Al-Shabaab. But—a caveat—there were similar hopes when Hassan Sheikh returned to the presidency in May 2022, a palpable sigh of relief that the professorial leader would return the country to the tenets of federalism and repair the frayed settlement of his predecessor. Today, looking ahead into 2026, such optimism was clearly misplaced.

On the battlefield, some sporadic military operations may occur before the elections in early 2026, possibly led by the Ugandans in the Shabelles with Turkish support. But with no likelihood of a concerted mobilisation from the centre, these will remain constrained. Another serious concern is that the African Union Support and Stabilisation Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM) remains in deep arrears, though the peacekeeping operations will stumble into the New Year, having been approved by the UN Security Council. But the longer the year drags on without funding emerging, the greater the risk that it will have to withdraw entirely or substantially diminish. 

Operation Onkod is another prospect-- the planned Puntland offensive into the Cal-Madow mountains against the heavily fortified Al-Shabaab positions in eastern Sanaag. The complexities of such an undertaking are immense —amplified by the Houthi presence and by Mogadishu's destabilising tendrils through Laas Aanood —but with American and Emirati backing, could yet disrupt a decade-long northern stronghold for the jihadists. Still, how the Houthi-Al-Shabaab nexus evolves in the coming months remains of particular concern and interest to foreign partners, as well as whether and how the Yemen-based militants decide to activate their latent threat capabilities along the Somali peninsula.

To the south, without a severe about-turn of government politics and priorities, Al-Shabaab will still be able to largely dictate the battlefield at whim. What that means in practice in the coming months, however, is harder to discern; whether the jihadists choose to go on the offensive as they did in February this year or continue to consolidate their grip over much of south-central Somalia. As ever, their leadership's inscrutable 'black box' makes it difficult to determine the jihadists' intentions in relation to, say, a negotiated settlement with the federal government or an attempt to capture Mogadishu. But while rumours have abounded in recent weeks over renewed attempts by Qatar to bring Al-Shabaab to the table, it is important to reiterate that any current settlement between the jihadists and the federal government would simply usher in a new phase of the decades-long civil war.

Further, despite the persistent optimism of World Bank and IMF economists, Somalia's economic situation does not offer much cause for gloating either. Villa Somalia's promised panacea of oil might soon be drilled off the coast, but these rewards are overwhelmingly intended for the Turks —and may trigger further protests from Kenya as well. And for the state itself, the federal government remains incapable of providing even a few services, even within the capital. With the dwindling largesse of the international community, Somalia's perennial and accentuated issues, from the decline of pastoralism to even building out the core pillars of a Somali state, are facing a crunch next year as well. This is particularly concerning if the Gu rains fail between April and June, with as many as 6 million people already expected to require humanitarian assistance in early 2026. The foreign-backed 'experiment' in Somali state-building is facing crunch time.

But more broadly, the current state of affairs feels like the last-chance saloon, with Somalia facing an inexorable confluence of issues and a political class unequipped to deal with the months ahead. The build-up to the May election is sure to dominate the headlines in the coming months of 2026, but it is hard to shake the uneasy sense of a country running out of road. The convergence of unresolved crises—constitutional, territorial, economic, and military—threatens to turbocharge the centrifugal forces pulling the state apart, with Al-Shabaab, as ever, waiting on the sidelines. After a calamitous year driven by a centralising, nationalist administration, 2026 may well prove the year that the house of cards finally comes tumbling down.

The Somali Wire Team