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Mogadishu’s municipal elections are more than a local contest; they are a stress test for Somalia’s long-promised transition from elite bargaining to citizen-driven governance. If they hold, they could become the clearest step yet toward the country’s first direct national elections in more than half a century. For decades, Somalia’s political order has been defined by indirect electoral arrangements and power-sharing formulas negotiated among clans and political elites. Those frameworks helped stabilize a state battered by…

Somalia’s latest political confrontation is more than a quarrel over election dates. It is a stress test of the country’s post-debt-relief political order—and, by extension, of the international state-building model that has underwritten Mogadishu’s progress for more than a decade. At the center is the National Consultation Conference, an opposition-aligned gathering that closed this week in Kismayo with a stark indictment of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s government. Its communiqué accuses the presidency of…

Somalia’s 2026 choice: avoid a legitimacy crisis by fixing the election model, not the scoreboard Somalia is entering another high-stakes transition with too little time, too much polarization, and a volatile security map. The federal government’s drive to centralize authority while invoking universal suffrage risks breaking the very political settlement that has held the country together — imperfectly but functionally — for a quarter century. A safer way through 2026 is available: an improved, time-bound indirect election…

Analysis: Somalia’s ‘one person, one vote’ push risks crisis without consensus and constitutional safeguards Somalia’s federal government is advancing a “one person, one vote” election model it says will anchor the country’s democratic transition. But the process, as described by Puntland State State Minister of the Presidency Abdifatah Abdinur, suffers from deep constitutional, legal and practical flaws that threaten to compound — not resolve — Somalia’s political fragility. The concerns revolve around three pillars of any…

MINNEAPOLIS — The takedown happened in seconds: masked federal agents sprinting toward a 20-year-old Somali American as he stepped from a restaurant, forcing him through a doorway and pinning him against a metal gate. “Why are you running?” one demanded in the bystander video, despite footage showing he had stopped. Moments later, as snow gathered on his jacket, an arm slid around his neck and he was shoved into an unmarked gray SUV while neighbors shouted that he is a citizen. The man, who asked to be identified as Mubashir…

Opinion: Trump’s “garbage” slur against Somali Americans shows how fascist politics take root President Donald Trump’s latest attack on Somali Americans — calling a small, visible community “garbage” during a Cabinet meeting, with Vice President J.D. Vance pounding the table in approval — is not a gaffe. It is a governing philosophy made plain: divide the country into “real” Americans and internal enemies, cast cruelty as strength, and test how far institutions will bend to accommodate it. This is not a semantic debate about…

Spain paved the way on Friday for a solution to a dispute over Western Sahara, which has been claimed by Morocco for almost 50 years, suggesting that making the region operate autonomously under Rabat's rule is "the most serious, realistic and credible" initiative. . This marked a huge departure from Spain's previous position to regard Morocco's grip on Western Sahara as an occupation. The shift followed months of frosty diplomatic relations and led to the announcement of a flurry of visits by Spanish…

Libya's war - torn parliament rejected all "interference" in its work, its spokesman told UN envoy Stephanie Williams on Monday after she offered to mediate in an election press when the country was torn between two prime ministers. Williams had on Friday offered to host talks between the eastern legislator and the institutions in the western capital Tripoli in a push for far-delayed votes. She has also warned of an "escalation" after parliament appointed a new prime minister in an attempt to oust the…

UN envoy Stephanie Williams on Friday offered to mediate between political rivals in Libya as two rival governments claim power after tentative steps towards unity over the past year. Williams, the UN Special Adviser in Libya, invited lawmakers to appoint 12 members to a committee to work to overcome the political stalemate. "The solution to Libya's crisis is not to form rival administrations and perennial transitions," Williams tweeted. "Libyans must agree on a consensual path forward that…

Fathi Bashagha, appointed by Libya's east as prime minister, said on Wednesday that he would not use force to take office in Tripoli despite the incumbent's promise to retain power. Parliament will swear in Bashagha as prime minister on Thursday, but the head of the current interim government, Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, has refused to relinquish control, raising the prospect of fighting. "It will not be used by force, either by us or the existing government," Bashagha told Reuters in an interview. "Tomorrow…