Issue No. 933

Ramadan and Rupture

Ramadan is known as the 'Month of Mercy', typically characterised by forgiveness and reconciliation within the Islamic world. Not so in Somalia, where Villa Somalia's ruinous push to 'finalise' the Provisional Constitution has taken another grim twist in recent days. The collapse of opposition-government talks on 22 February was inevitable, with Villa Somalia's flippancy evident in the needless arguments over venue and security personnel. But what has been clear in the days since is just how far this administration-- with just over 70 days left of the presidential term-- is ever more willing to push the country.

Yet the events of the past days have been anything but flippant. With negotiations between the Council for the Future of Somalia (CFS) and the government in February leading nowhere, Puntland President Said Abdullahi Deni and his Jubaland counterpart, Ahmed Madoobe, soon departed Mogadishu. Dozens of federal lawmakers from Jubaland have followed to Kismaayo, detailing their opposition to the unilateral constitutional amendments being coerced through parliament this week. These amendments-- partially published and barely understood-- would further dismember the federal nature of the country, as well as deliver a raft of new powers to the president. 

The passage of the centralising amendments to Chapters 1-4 in March 2024 was an ugly affair, but the events of the past weeks have degenerated into a pantomime directed by Speaker Aden Madoobe. Numerous opposition politicians have been arbitrarily barred from the chamber, while amendments to 10 of 15 chapters of Somalia's principal constitutional framework were agreed upon in less than 15 sessions. Yesterday, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud pledged that this week would finalise the Provisional Constitution, 14 years after its core tenets were hammered out-- with utter disregard for due process and the imperative of national consensus.

Always intended as a negotiated instrument, the Provisional Constitution served as scaffolding for consensus in a fractured polity. The irony is not missed that to finalise it through coercion and theatre hollows out its foundational purpose. And so, rather than heralding a new chapter of Somalia's tortured state-building process, much of the president's comments were rather grimly directed at his mounting opposition, particularly warning Puntland and others that dissent will no longer be tolerated.

The arguments proffered by fervent government defenders, such as State Foreign Minister Ali Bal'ad, that Somalia needs 'clarity' on the Provisional Constitution do not wash. Such 'clarity' is endangering the very future of the Third Somali Republic, essentially instrumentalising a new constitution for the president's clan and political cronies. And what does a 'finalised' Constitution mean in a context like Somalia? Are these new sunny political uplands where the status of Banaadir or an Israeli-recognised Somaliland has been resolved, where the torturous questions of resource-sharing and distribution have been fully negotiated, where the National Security Architecture has been implemented with Al-Shabaab on the back foot? Quite the opposite.

Instead, the passage of these constitutional amendments is accompanied by police manning the parliament chamber, while Speaker Madoobe has barred journalists and installed government goons to provide a false semblance of quorum. Few will believe that when the Provisional Constitution drops the 'Provisional', Somalia's fraught politics will suddenly converge in an unprecedented moment of unity behind a lame-duck president. 

But Villa Somalia has the bit between its teeth, and is deploying all ruses and forces at its disposal to dismember and distract its opposition. On Monday, over 30 Puntland lawmakers aboard a Daallo plane in mid-descent to Garowe were suddenly forced back to Mogadishu by the federal government, in a clear bid by the federal government to prevent their consultation with Deni and prevent the loss of quorum for the constitutional vote. The weaponisation of airspace has been a favoured tactic of this administration-- and their predecessors-- but essentially arbitrarily detaining dozens of parliamentarians is surely a fresh low. Or it would have been, had not the warnings from the Puntlanders that their security was at risk come to pass. In the early hours of this morning, police raided their Airport Hotel, allegedly roughing up and detaining a Puntland senior advisor, Ahmed Abdi Hurre. African Union peacekeepers have now stepped in, reportedly sealing off the hotel and deploying security for the remaining Puntland lawmakers. Just a couple of miles away, the farce in parliament continues —without most of the Darood parliamentarians from Jubaland and Puntland.

Perhaps best described as a reluctant federalist in his first term, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud long ago abandoned any pretence that his government ascribes to a devolved system of government or even to the fragile political settlement. And so, the appeasement strategy of the international community has comprehensively failed; worse, it has emboldened the federal government to go further and faster at each point, aware of the absent guardrails of previous years. There are almost too many red lines that have been crossed to count, be it the violent attempts to unseat Jubaland President Ahmed Madoobe and cleave off Gedo last year, or the unilateral formation of a new Federal Member State in Laas Aanood. 

Somalia's traditional Western partners are no doubt keen to wash their hands of Somalia, fatigued by the country's perennial instability and fraught politics, and distracted by more urgent crises closer to home. The rise of the Gulf powers has left them adrift in Mogadishu and across the wider Horn, no longer able to corral or compel the key political players, as they did prior to the 2022 presidential election. And so they continue to plough millions upon millions into Banaadir in the name of state-building, while wrecking Somalia's fragile national political settlement.

At the end of February, the CFS declared that a 'National Forum to Safeguard the Country' will be held on 10 April, most likely in Garowe. Barring some bizarre about-turn, this will surely herald the beginning of a parallel electoral process. Ramadan may be the month of mercy, but when the holy month ends, Somalia may stand on the cusp of something far less forgiving — the disintegration of the Third Republic.

The Somali Wire Team