Somali President Hassan Attends Ethiopia Dam Inauguration, Secures Three Key Agreements

Analysis: Somalia’s Fractured Politics Meet Red Sea Power Plays

On a humid September evening in Mogadishu, a handshake meant for the cameras never happened. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud had hoped to sit down with Jubbaland leader Ahmed Mohamed Islam, better known as Ahmed Madobe, before flying to the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Kenya, a frequent mediator in Somali politics, had quietly worked the phones to make it happen. But at the last moment, the meeting fell apart, after opposition figures urged Madobe to stay away.

In the Horn of Africa, optics matter almost as much as outcomes. The presidency wanted images of federal harmony to beam to New York—and to hint at a wedge between two powerful regional figures, Madobe and Puntland State’s Said Abdullahi Deni, who recently patched up a long-running feud. Instead, the no-show sharpened the view that Somalia’s political center is struggling to hold, just as a much larger contest is unfolding off its shores.

A missed handshake—and what it signals

Somalia’s federal project, buffeted by insurgency and clan rivalries, depends on forging trust with the country’s regional states. That trust is in short supply. The opposition bloc known as the Madasha Samatabixinta Soomaaliyeed, which has been rebuilding after internal splits, openly opposed the Mogadishu meeting. Their argument is familiar: don’t endorse choreography without substance, especially as Somalia approaches another election cycle without a broadly accepted roadmap.

For Villa Somalia, the calculation was different. An on-camera thaw with a key federal member state before the UN summit could show donors and partners that domestic politics are stabilizing under President Hassan. By avoiding the photo op, the opposition denied him that narrative—while reinforcing its own. In Mogadishu’s political bazaar, where power ebbs and flows by the week, this is not merely symbolism. It reflects a deeper impasse over how Somalia moves toward elections and how much the center can compel the regions to play along.

Somali politics is full of proverbs; one often repeated on the airwaves is, “Gacmo wadajir bay wax ku gooyaan”—hands working together cut through. At the moment, the hands are not together.

Ethiopia’s “existential” sea ambition hardens

If the domestic scene seems tangled, the regional chessboard is even more complex. Ethiopia, a landlocked nation of roughly 120 million, has long chafed at the logistical and economic costs of shipping nearly all of its trade through Djibouti. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed called access to the sea “an existential issue” in remarks last year; his government has since sought arrangements from port concessions to security compacts that could ease dependence.

That ambition has alarmed neighbors. In January, a memorandum of understanding between Ethiopia and authorities in North Western State of Somalia—an autonomous region of Somalia not internationally recognized as independent—triggered an uproar in Mogadishu, which regards any deal over its coastline as illegitimate. The concern today is broader: that Addis Ababa, facing internal strains and outward pressures, might cut a new deal or test limits in seeking a corridor to the Red Sea—whether through Eritrea or Somalia.

With Houthi attacks in the Red Sea disrupting shipping and insurers raising premiums, the cost of maritime uncertainty is rising for everyone, including Ethiopia. The Red Sea-Suez corridor carries roughly 12% of global trade. In such a landscape, hardening positions are not surprising. But they are risky. An assertive Ethiopia colliding with fragile Somali federal politics is a combustible mix—and not just for the Horn.

Egypt signals a new role in Somalia

Enter Egypt, which has publicly clashed with Ethiopia for years over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Nile. Cairo now appears poised to deepen its footprint on the Somali coast. Egypt’s leading state-aligned daily Al-Ahram reported that Cairo plans to send troops to Somalia, framing the country as a frontline where pressure can be applied to Addis Ababa. The paper also invoked historic ties: from Egyptian teachers and scholars who worked in Somalia after independence to al-Azhar’s educational links.

What exactly “troops to Somalia” might mean remains unclear. Would Egyptian forces deploy in a training capacity, join multinational missions, or seek bilateral basing? Somalia is already navigating the drawdown of the African Union’s ATMIS mission and the difficult handover to its national forces. Any new security presence will raise questions about mandates and sovereignty—and about whether Somalia is becoming a staging ground in a broader Ethiopia-Egypt rivalry.

The risk is not abstract. Layer external competition over local political fragmentation and you have the ingredients for proxy dynamics that Somalia has struggled to escape for decades. Regional capitals may see opportunity; Somali citizens will see the probability of new entanglements at a time they are still trying to finish one war with al-Shabab and avoid another with their own politics.

An election calendar without a consensus map

The domestic clock is ticking. While President Hassan’s allies emphasize momentum on security and governance reform, the opposition points to a cardinal problem: there is still no broadly agreed national framework for the political transition and the next elections. The opposition’s Madasha bloc plans to open a series of conferences in Mogadishu aimed at pressing the presidency into concessions and a consensus process.

That sets up a collision with Villa Somalia, which—according to opposition figures and diplomats—shows little appetite to yield ground. The failed meeting with Ahmed Madobe may have been about optics, but the standoff is about power and process: who sets the rules for the vote, how federal member states fit in, and whether any deal can hold long enough to be implemented.

Somalia has been here before. Under a previous administration, a tripartite alignment with Ethiopia and Eritrea briefly promised a new regional architecture. Today, those ties have frayed, and the geopolitical pieces have shifted. The irony is stark: as Somalia’s earlier anti-isolation strategy dissolves, its largest neighbor is more openly pursuing sea access, and another regional heavyweight is signaling a security role on Somali soil.

What to watch next

• UN General Assembly messaging: Without the Madobe meeting, how does Mogadishu present its domestic story in New York to donors and partners?
• Egypt’s military contours: Will Cairo clarify the scale, mandate, and timeline of any troop deployment to Somalia—and how will Mogadishu frame it?
• Ethiopia’s next move: Beyond rhetoric, does Addis seek new port arrangements through diplomacy, economic leverage, or security deals?
• Federal-regional talks: Can the presidency and federal member states set a credible, consensus path to elections—one that opposition groups can sell to their supporters?
• Security transition stress test: As ATMIS draws down, can Somali forces manage both the insurgency and a more crowded geopolitical neighborhood?

Somali politics rarely offers neat endings. A veteran broadcaster in Mogadishu likes to sign off his nightly program with the line, “War la hubo iyo waano la hubo ha kala lumin”—do not lose sight of what is certain. The certainties now? A fragile center, assertive neighbors, and a global shipping artery that concentrates power and anxiety along Somalia’s 3,300-kilometer coastline. The question is whether Somali leaders can build a minimum consensus at home before the region’s larger storms make that choice for them.

By Ali Musa
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.