Somalia's Last Chance Saloon At the 11th hour, with Al-Shabaab literally at the gates of Mogadishu and only under immense international pressure, has Somalia's President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud reluctantly reached out to the national opposition. On 30 March, exactly one year after forcing sweeping constitutional amendments through parliament that all but eviscerated the federation, the president called – through gritted teeth - for a national conference to forge "unity" in the face of looming defeat and possible state collapse. Villa Somalia has pushed the country's fragile, transitional political model to the brink, with the jihadists having taken ready advantage of the chaos. But while the prospects of talks have been tentatively welcomed in some corners, their parameters remain unclear. What is apparent, though, is that the federal government will have to abandon its monopolistic constitutional and electoral agenda if it is to stall Al-Shabaab's advance and begin patching up Somalia's elite political consensus.