Somalia needs political settlement before it is too late, report says

By Afyare Abdi ElmiWednesday June 3, 2026

People protest against the extension of the extension of the mandate of the current federal government, at the Eng. Yariisow Stadium along Dr. Kadare Road in Mogadishu, Somalia May 10, 2026 [Feisal Omar/Reuters]

With its election calendar broken and no political transition agreed, Somalia has slipped into one of the gravest and most perilous phases in its modern history. On May 15, the day President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s four-year term was originally set to end, United States- and United Kingdom-backed negotiations between the government and the opposition collapsed, deepening doubts over the legitimacy of key federal institutions.

Justin Davis, the US chargé d’affaires in Somalia, and Charles King, the UK ambassador, had spent weeks urging leaders on both sides to settle on a transition roadmap. Their failure to secure a deal has left the country without an accepted route forward at a moment of maximum instability.

Since 2008, Somalia has often appeared near the top of global fragility rankings. Under Mohamud, the state now faces a political stalemate that threatens to pull it further apart. The crisis is unfolding alongside insecurity, humanitarian suffering, economic weakness, entrenched corruption and intensifying geopolitical competition.

At the centre of the dispute is the unresolved question of what Somalia’s state actually is. North Western State of Somalia is pushing for independence, while Puntland State and Jubbaland have cut ties with the Federal Government. Al-Shabab still holds substantial territory and controls major roads. Meanwhile, the Federal Government and at least three Federal Member States have remained in office beyond their mandates. The electoral timetable has expired without a vote: parliament’s four-year term ended in April 2026, the president’s a month later, and no accepted road map for elections or transition has replaced them.

In a process widely criticised at home, the government changed the constitution on its own, adopted an electoral law seen by opponents as designed to serve its interests, and created an election commission that critics dismiss as biased. Over the past four years, President Mohamud has steadily accumulated authority over the executive, legislative and judicial branches.

The national opposition, along with Puntland State and Jubbaland, says the government has staged a power grab and rejects the changes outright. They insist the 2012 constitution, which underpins Somalia’s political settlement, remains the binding legal framework. Somalia is now trapped between two rival claims to constitutional authority. The government, however, argues that it is pursuing a long-promised democratic shift from indirect, clan-based selection to one-person, one-vote elections, and says parliament lawfully approved amendments extending the presidential term from four years to five.

For now, universal suffrage and party politics remain more aspiration than reality for most Somalis. Both the government and the opposition still accept clan-based power-sharing as the basis of the system, but they disagree sharply over how clan representatives should be chosen in parliament at both state and federal levels. The government wants a one-year extension and backs an electoral model for clan delegates that its critics say would entrench its power. The opposition, by contrast, supports a reformed indirect process under which clans would select their representatives.

The political rupture is unfolding in a country already stretched by security and governance crises. Although Mogadishu has become safer, violence remains widespread, especially in south-central Somalia. ACLED data shows national fatalities hit a record in 2025, with al-Shabab accounting for the overwhelming majority of conflict deaths recorded over the past two decades. During the current administration’s four years, the same data indicates tens of thousands of deaths nationwide, concentrated mainly in Banadir, Lower Shabelle, Lower Jubba and Hiran.

The standoff is also being driven by worsening humanitarian and economic conditions. Even with rains falling in many parts of the country, aid agencies say millions of Somalis remain food insecure. International relief efforts are struggling to secure funding for communities affected by poverty, displacement and conflict. Foreign aid has fallen since the Trump administration dismantled USAID in 2025, while Somalia’s domestic revenue-to-GDP ratio still sits in the low single digits. Questions about whether the state is financially sustainable have led many to look to a resource-driven economy, particularly as Turkiye expands its role in Somalia’s oil and fisheries sectors.

Corruption has further eroded confidence in state institutions. The Corruption Perceptions Index has consistently placed Somalia among the world’s most corrupt countries over the past decade, and that reputation has seeped into nearly every area of governance. Critics accuse the government of mishandling land administration, including forcibly removing people from public land occupied during the war and selling some of those plots to merchants without due process. Many citizens holding legal papers issued by previous governments have also lost their homes.

Those domestic strains are now being intensified by regional and global rivalries. Somalia is trying to navigate sharpened competition across the Horn of Africa, the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea and the western Indian Ocean. Yet its fractured political class is responding not as a unified state but through regions, clans and competing blocs, each drawing support from different regional powers and neighbouring countries.

Turkiye, Saudi Arabia, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Iran and Egypt are all increasing their presence in the Horn of Africa. Late last year, Israel became the first country to formally recognise North Western State of Somalia, adding another layer to the region’s rivalry and drawing fresh attention to the contest over Somalia and North Western State of Somalia as geopolitics shifts.

The combined political, security, economic and humanitarian pressures have also shrunk civic space. The government has been accused of suppressing dissent by arresting journalists and civic activists. The opposition is now calling for protests, while the government is actively discouraging public mobilisation.

What should happen now

Somalia now stands at a decisive moment. If the international community intervenes in time, it may still help steer the country away from violence and fragmentation. In the past, the US, the European Union and the UK — Somalia’s main traditional donors — helped facilitate the country’s last five political transitions in 2004, 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2022.

The American and British diplomats in Mogadishu did make serious efforts to bring the sides together and keep dialogue alive, though those efforts came late in the day. A final effort may now require more direct engagement from Washington and London, alongside outreach to non-traditional Gulf donors. Turkiye has also signalled interest in taking part in mediation, which should be welcomed given Ankara’s influence with figures in both the government and the opposition.

First, the international community should press the government to negotiate a political roadmap in good faith, with a clear focus on a practical and timely election process. Villa Somalia should also stop deploying state institutions — including security forces, the aviation agency and international assistance — as instruments in the political fight.

At the same time, the opposition should be encouraged to engage constructively and avoid launching a parallel process that could produce an alternative government. Above all, the international community should target sanctions at political spoilers who resort to extrajudicial means to destabilise the country.

Beyond the immediate standoff, Somalia needs genuine national dialogue and reconciliation. Earlier peace efforts in Djibouti and Kenya brought a wider range of actors into the peace process and helped lay the foundations of the Third Republic. One lesson from those experiences is clear: institutions built by people who have not truly reconciled are unlikely to endure. Somalis have never had the chance to take part in a serious, inclusive national dialogue. What they need now is an open forum, real reconciliation and state institutions they can all claim as their own.

Somalia is nearing political disintegration, but it has not yet crossed the point of no return. That is exactly why the wider international community must step in now, as it has done before. There is still time to pull the country back from a self-destructive course and protect years of investment in state-building and peacebuilding.