Hiiraan Online Urges Protection of Somalia’s State-Building Progress

By Hon. Ali M OmarSunday April 5, 2026

The Federal Government says it will not accept lessons in democracy from critics it accuses of trying to weaken Somalia’s hard-won political progress.

A wave of commentary on Somalia, both online and in other forums, has offered what the government sees as a selective and misleading picture of the country’s politics. The debate over South West State, it argues, has similarly obscured the deeper question: whether Somalia’s federal arrangement can be protected and strengthened. That, officials insist, is where the real dispute lies.

The government points first to what it describes as measurable gains. On 25 December 2025, Mogadishu hosted Somalia’s first one-person, one-vote election since 1969. Nearly one million people registered to vote. More than 1,600 candidates from 20 political parties competed for 390 council seats across 523 polling stations. Then, on 4 March 2026, the Federal Parliament completed a 14-year constitutional review process, with the President signing the Constitution into law four days later. Together with Somalia’s completion of the HIPC debt relief process and its assumption of the presidency of the United Nations Security Council in January 2026, these milestones, the government says, reflect a country steadily building stronger institutions, clearer constitutional rules and a more credible democratic transition.

Officials say those achievements did not emerge in a vacuum. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, they note, played a central role in the country’s early state-building during his first term, overseeing the establishment of most of the current Federal Member States, the formation of the Upper House and the introduction of Somalia’s first delegate-based indirect electoral system. His second term, they add, has brought the constitutional process to completion and is now focused on implementing one-person, one-vote elections, even as the government continues to confront an insurgency, defend national unity and sovereignty, and raise Somalia’s diplomatic profile. Against that backdrop, the claim that 14 years of state-building are being reversed, the government says, does not withstand scrutiny.

Consensus-building in a federal system assembled from the ruins of state collapse is never simple, particularly while Al-Shabaab remains an active threat. The process is slow, uneven and often frustrating. But that, the government argues, is the reality of governing rather than evidence of failure. It says it has consistently sought negotiated outcomes with broad support through dialogue, not through decree. To call that an institutional breakdown, officials argue, is either to misunderstand how Somali federalism works or to misrepresent it deliberately. They say the Federal Government remains engaged with Federal Member States and other key stakeholders through the National Consultative Council and related platforms in order to shape a credible and inclusive electoral framework. In their view, there is no constitutional vacuum, only difficult politics — the kind that rarely grabs headlines but often defines how democracies are built. Those opposed to the process, the government says, should come forward with alternatives rather than only criticism. It also argues that many of the loudest detractors are former leaders who know the complexity of the issues they are attacking, or current members of parliament who have yet to use their own platforms to better serve their constituents.

South West State, officials say, must also be viewed within that national framework. The National Consultative Council agreed on a harmonized political and electoral arrangement designed to preserve coherence during Somalia’s transition. Under that collective deal, Federal Member State mandates were extended by agreement. The President of South West State, the government says, benefited from that arrangement and later moved away from it to pursue a separate regional course. Officials contend this is not just a political rift, but a challenge to the legitimacy of a nationally agreed process and to the unity of Somalia’s federal compact. They ask a simple question: if collective agreements can be discarded unilaterally after their advantages have been secured, what confidence can remain in future national deals? In their view, tolerating such behavior would create a dangerous precedent, weaken trust in shared institutions and deepen political fragmentation.

Claims that the Federal Government’s response amounted to coercion, the government says, are equally unfounded. It argues that it has both the constitutional authority and the sovereign responsibility to uphold the rule of law, protect legitimate institutions and safeguard citizens when those institutions come under strain. What its critics call coercion, officials say, the Constitution defines as duty. The government says action was taken lawfully to restore order in a member state facing an internal crisis. To frame that response as a slide into authoritarianism, it adds, is advocacy dressed up as neutral analysis.

The charge that Somalia’s political culture is being hollowed out, officials say, is especially difficult to sustain. They point to a government that has maintained multi-party participation, tolerated outspoken opposition and preserved broad political space despite severe security pressure. They argue it is not credible to accuse a government of intimidation when those making the accusation are doing so openly and without punishment. In their telling, such claims usually come from those who have lost political ground through competition and now seek to discredit the process itself.

The consequences reach well beyond the political arena. As energy is diverted into internal disputes that officials say could be avoided, Al-Shabaab continues to exploit division and uncertainty. Every unnecessary confrontation, they argue, drains state capacity and distracts from the shared security threat facing Somalia and the wider region. Those prolonging the dispute, they say, should consider who stands to gain most from a divided Somali state.

On Somalia’s ties with the Republic of Turkey, the government says the position is equally clear. It describes the agreements reached with Turkiye as sovereign decisions made in Somalia’s national interest. Those deals, officials note, have been negotiated across three successive administrations since 2011, each of which held a legitimate electoral mandate. To portray a long-running development partnership as foreign interference or patronage-based corruption, they say, is unfair to Turkey and disrespectful to Somali sovereignty. The government says the agreements went through the proper executive channels and that it remains committed to ensuring Somalia’s natural resources benefit the Somali people. Efforts to exploit public concern over resource governance for narrow political advantage, it warns, will not be ignored.

Somalia’s challenges are real, the government says, and it has never claimed otherwise. But the difficulty of governing a post-conflict federal state, officials argue, is not evidence of authoritarian intent; it is the environment in which every Somali government has had to operate. What the country does not need, they say, is political actors who invoke constitutionalism and accountability as weapons against the institutions they say they defend. The Federal Government says it will continue to govern in the interest of all Somali citizens, pursue a credible and inclusive electoral process and engage international partners transparently and on the basis of mutual respect. It will not, officials add, be sidetracked by statements they believe are meant to destabilize rather than build.

Hon. Ali M Omar is the State Minister of Ministry of the Foreign Affairs, Federal Republic of Somalia