Issue No. 935

A Pyrrhic Victory in Mogadishu

The Greek philosopher and historian Plutarch recounts that King Pyrrhus of Epirus, after defeating the Romans at Asculum in 279 BC, lamented, "One more such victory over the Romans and we are completely done for." After almost four torturous years, the same might be said for any more supposed 'victories' for the incumbent federal government of Somalia. To nobody's surprise, the constitutional 'review' process undertaken by Somalia's federal government was never about implementing direct democracy after all. It was, as widely anticipated, a thinly veiled power grab intended to centralise political power, eviscerate Somalia's federal system, and extend the term of the incumbent president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud (HSM). And so, at the 11th hour and with less than 70 days remaining in his term of office, HSM declared Somalia's new constitutional text 'complete' and signed it into 'law.'

On Sunday, the Somali president announced the "official end of the country's decades-old Provisional Constitution," asserting that the nation's new Basic Law "will now be implemented" and expressed hope that it will "guide Somalia toward lasting political stability." No reference was made to the brazen attempts to simulate a parliamentary quorum by grounding an aircraft full of MPs from Puntland who had planned to scuttle the vote by leaving the capital, nor to police roughing up and detaining a Puntland presidential adviser in the dead of night in Mogadishu on obscure charges. No attempt was made to gloss over the absence of Jubaland's parliamentary caucus or the imaginative use of "online voting" invoked by the Speaker of Parliament to compensate for absenteeism on the day of the vote.

The president's loyalists have hailed this step as cause for celebration — the long overdue resolution of Somalia's fitful, tortured state-building process, after millions of foreign dollars and innumerable scholars and experts were deployed to support it. Their constitutional model, they aver, corrects historical errors, such as devolving too much power to the Federal Member States and muddying the locus of executive authority between the president and prime minister. In their view, Somalia needs a strong central authority vested in a powerful presidency – conveniently overlooking the fact that these were among the primary causes of civil war and state collapse in the first place. The large proportion of Somalis who reject this glibly ahistorical argument are labelled as spoilers and even 'national criminals.' 

A more widely-held view is that HSM's constitutional coup is the culmination of a sustained effort – by both his administration and that of his predecessor, Mohamed Abdillahi Farmaajo – to sabotage the federal project. Nothing has been left untouched —from the wildly unbalanced 2024 hydrocarbon agreement with Ankara, to the rampant politicisation of Somalia's security architecture, and the monopolisation of foreign aid by Mogadishu. Long gone are any pretences of elite-negotiated compromise or a balancing act between the major clan families, enshrined within the so-called '4.5 system' – all set aside in the name of a new constitution that serves a narrow clique of Damul Jadiid politicians in Mogadishu, their predominantly Hawiye constituents, and a few ornamental office-holders from other clans.

The Council for the Future of Somalia (CFS) has decried the apparent completion of the Constitution in this manner, which runs contrary to all best practices. They maintain that the president and parliament's terms will expire in the coming weeks, regardless of the political theatre in Mogadishu. And as so many predicted, the stage is now, no doubt, set for the establishment of a parallel national authority, formalising Somalia's division between two constitutional regimes and two rival political camps.

No doubt aware of its unpopularity, the government has been readying for discontent on the streets of Mogadishu. Hundreds more clan militia loyal to Villa Somalia have been trained up and deployed to the capital, alongside the heavily politicised, Turkish-trained Gorgor and Haram'ad forces. In particular, the National Intelligence and Security Agency Director-General, Mahad Salad, has overseen the securitisation of the capital in recent months, attempting to ban political meetings and to prevent the opposition from massing forces in Mogadishu against the government's agenda. Whether former president Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and other key Hawiye opposition leaders will call their supporters onto the streets remains to be seen, but the incumbents are taking no chances.

Fortunately for HSM and his retinue, they have some stalwart foreign allies. Türkiye, in particular, is determined to protect its considerable investments in Somalia – almost all of which are located in areas inhabited by the president's Abgaal clan. Egypt has also recently signed a new military co-operation agreement with Somalia, in a transparent effort to box in Ethiopia. And Qatar, the principal patron of Muslim Brotherhood movements around the globe, remains staunchly behind its Damul Jadiid clients in Mogadishu.

The only way to avoid the crisis deepening further is a return to the 2012 Provisional Constitution as a point of departure and a timely, credible, widely accepted electoral process. But with all eyes on the ballooning war in the Middle East and spiralling oil prices, HSM has been handed a deus ex machina and a temporary political cover. The president and his allies are now convinced that with the "completion" of the new Constitution, any pretence of talks can be abandoned and the opposition bulldozed into acquiescence or irrelevance.

The African Union Declaration on Unconstitutional Changes of Government specifically decries the "manipulation of democratic processes to tamper with constitutions and effecting amendments to electoral laws within a short span before the elections and without the consent of the majority of political actors and in violation of the stipulated national democratic principles, rules and procedures for constitutional amendment." 

It would be hard to find a better description of what HSM and his cronies have just achieved, but the African Union – where Somalia currently sits on the Peace and Security Council and Peer Review Mechanism – is unlikely to take action. Sadly, it may not need to: the annals of history are littered with presidents, prime ministers, and despots attempting to rewrite a constitution to their advantage. More often than not, they succeed in consolidating authoritarian rule and entrenching patrimonial networks only in the short term, before political rot and determined opposition combine to overthrow them. HSM's constitutional victory is not only likely to prove Pyrrhic: it may well be the death warrant of the Third Somali Republic.

The Somali Wire Team