Issue No. 939

Laftagareen turns kingmaker to homewrecker

The worm, it seems, has finally turned. After years serving as a prop for President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud's monocratic aspirations, Abdiaziz Laftagareen, the leader of South West State, has clapped back against Villa Somalia, accusing the federal government of – among other things - dividing the country, monopolising public resources, colluding with Al-Shabaab, and leading Somalia back into state failure. In a televised speech earlier this afternoon, Laftagareen declared that he had withdrawn from Hassan Sheikh's political party (of which he is a founding member and Deputy Chair), rejected the president's new constitution, and called for an inclusive national dialogue on the way forward. In effect, the South West president was declaring his intent to join the opposition Coalition for the Future of Somalia (CFS) – if they would have him.

The sense of déjà vu is palpable — Laftagareen breaking ranks with Villa Somalia, the prospect of parallel elections in Baraawe, and militia mobilisation stoked by Mogadishu. We have been here before, but this time, finally, the sole Digil-Mirifle elected leader within Villa Somalia's camp appears to have cast his lot with the opposition, refusing to entertain the government's constitutional charade any longer. At the 11th hour of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud's presidency, South West's severing of ties with Mogadishu makes it the third Federal Member State (FMS) to do so, and possibly deals a fatal blow to the government's electoral agenda. Laftagareen's comments today were certainly a hard-hitting set of remarks from a regional leader who has generally preferred to avoid the spotlight, with the declarative burning of bridges making any reconciliation with Mogadishu nigh-impossible. 

Cutting short his visit to Mecca, Laftagareen evaded his wannabe federal captors to arrive safely in Baidoa yesterday afternoon-- purportedly travelling via Ethiopia. In scenes reminiscent of a bad action movie, the South West leader successfully eluded Villa Somalia's various attempts to thwart his arrival, including a ban on all flights from Mogadishu to Baidoa. With Laftagareen returning to Baidoa —now bristling with heavily armed Daraawiish —the stage is set for the vacillating politician to orchestrate his own re-election. The last straw for the uneasy Baidoa-Mogadishu pact appears to have been the active sponsoring of militias in South West by federal ministers, a reproduction of the government's destabilising antics elsewhere, particularly in Gedo, last year.

Though overshadowed by the coarse rewriting of the Provisional Constitution, the political context in South West has continued to deteriorate in recent weeks, with simmering dislike between Laftagareen and his nominal allies in the JSP spilling over into active conflict. In early February, several days of deadly clashes erupted in Baidoa between forces aligned with the federal Livestock Minister Hassan Eelay and South West troops, leaving scores dead and injured. Regional officials subsequently alleged that Eelay's forces-- at the behest of the federal government-- were smuggling in weapons and fighters to destabilise the town and possibly overthrow Laftagareen. If true, it was a wholly unnecessary-- and now counterproductive-- measure that has brought the thinly papered-over fractures within the JSP to the surface.

In the weeks since, the conflict has moved from Baidoa to Buurkhaaba, where opposition militias drawn from the Hadame, Leysan and other influential Digil-Mirifle clans have mobilised considerable numbers. Having dubbed themselves 'Badbaado Qaran-- South West State', a number of Daraawiish paramilitaries have defected to the forces as well, spurred on by patrons in Mogadishu. Their publicly stated objective is to remove Laftagareen from office, citing his expired mandate, and the Qansaxdheere district in Bay has now fallen to these opposition forces. Many anticipate that this volatile situation will degenerate into further armed clashes in the coming days, with arms and men pouring in on both sides. On Tuesday in Baidoa, the South West administration further unveiled a new contingent of army soldiers as part of the 60th Brigade, declaring their full support for Laftagareen's government in a published video.

Yesterday, the South West State spokesperson declared that the administration has formally suspended all cooperation with the federal government, citing "blatant interference" and military mobilisation against Baidoa. He stated that while the federal government is supposed to "regulate the federal system... and respect the autonomy of member states, these principles have been undermined." The regional government has further maintained that it has the constitutional right to hold its own polls, with the South West spokesperson adding that the region will now proceed with presidential elections. The last South West presidential 'elections' were conducted in December 2018, when Laftagareen was forcibly installed into his post by then-president Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo--aided by Ethiopian troops-- in infamously bloody scenes.

Today, though, fresh off the 'win' of finalising the Provisional Constitution — delivering a thinly veiled monopolisation of power in the presidency and a term extension — the loss of Laftagareen will no doubt cause dismay in Villa Somalia. Without the grim-faced acquiescence of South West, Villa Somalia's putative 'one-person, one-vote' elections will be restricted even further to a handful of Hawiye-majority towns in south-central Somalia and an enclave in Laas Aanood. And without the Digil-Mirifle president, only the elected Hawiye leaders from Hirshabelle and Galmudug remain, and perhaps not even for much longer. Though Villa Somalia has repeatedly dangled aspirants to their positions and cash at Ali 'Guudlawe' and Ahmed Karie 'Qoorqoor', their not-so-private reservations about the government's monopolistic agenda are well known. And the national opposition will most certainly hope that Laftagareen's unseemly exodus from the Justice and Solidarity Party's (JSP) camp will prompt his counterparts in Jowhar and Dhusamareb to follow suit.

First, though, is the thorny issue of South West elections. Laftagareen can hardly be described as a democrat, and having amended his own regional constitution in February 2024, another term is all but secured in the coming weeks. Plied with cash from Mogadishu and Ethiopian security, the South West president has repeatedly thwarted intermittent pressure to conduct elections since his term expired in December 2022. But if Laftagareen now wants to attach himself to the broader opposition bloc-- the CFS-- he must renew his mandate and soon, as the leaders of Jubaland and Puntland have done. The key date will be mid-April when the CFS will meet in Garowe, most probably to begin a parallel electoral process ahead of the government's fast-expiring mandate. If he can 'win' another election by then, Laftagareen's participation in the summit would be an undeniable boost, expanding the number of regional leaders within the CFS from two to three-- more than the Mogadishu bloc can claim. Still, while noises from the CFS so far have been positive about Laftagareen's Damascene conversion, many are nevertheless wary of the leader's historic vacillation.

The federal government, on the other hand, has been sent into a tailspin, with President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud recalling Interior Minister Ali Hosh from Saudi Arabia as well to spearhead Mogadishu's countermeasures. In the coming days, Villa Somalia is likely to continue to seek to prise Laftagareen back to the table, as it has so often done before. As part of this, Hassan Sheikh is reported to have called Ethiopian PM Abiy Ahmed this week to convince the South West leader to abandon his course of action, offering reassurances that Laftagareen would remain Villa Somalia's candidate in any forthcoming elections. But it appears that Abiy —as has been the case with Somaliland —will remain on the sidelines, though he may be reluctant to help dislodge Laftagareen given the considerable security investments and trust placed in Baidoa.

At the same time, Villa Somalia's dormant plans for parallel polls in the coastal town of Baraawe have already been revived in a bid to muddy the electoral waters. Laftagareen may have wielded his influential —and unstable —position to maximum effect, drawing substantial sums from Mogadishu for offering the government a veneer of cross-clan and cross-regional cooperation. But trust between Villa Somalia and Laftagareen has never taken root, and the federal government has repeatedly flirted with ousting the Digil-Mirifle politician. Moreover, a number of Digil-Mirifle allies of Villa Somalia-- particularly Speaker of Parliament Aden Madoobe, who helped engineer the brute constitutional rewriting-- have maintained their armed toeholds in Bay and Bakool and are likely to begin mobilising more actively against Laftagareen.

The myopic politics of Villa Somalia and its allies may finally deliver their own downfall. Laftagareen has a well-earned reputation for extracting his pound of flesh for his political choices, be it security guarantees from Addis or patronage from Mogadishu. And he has certainly picked his moment to defect, only a handful of days after the triumphant federal government, one buoyed by its foreign patrons, declared that it would remain in power for another year. Whether Laftagareen's severing of ties with Mogadishu prompts any response from the lethargic international community is one matter, but it undoubtedly strips the federal government of further legitimacy, with its final Digil-Mirifle fig-leaf falling away. A reckoning with Somalia's hollowed-out federal order has long been overdue, and there is a certain irony that it may now be soon delivered by the very man once installed to uphold it.

The Somali Wire Team