By Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed
Former Prime Minister of Somalia
Somalia’s president is not just seeking re-election; he is rewriting the constitution. The changes appear democratic on paper but are designed to eliminate genuine competition and make defeat impossible. This piece explains exactly how.
In January, I floated a proposal that Somalia establish a caretaker government to manage its 2026 electoral transition. The response confirmed what many Somalis already sense – the forthcoming elections are not simply another round of political horse-trading. They are a test of whether Somalia’s political class can resist the gravitational pull of authoritarian consolidation at a moment when Somalia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity are being tested amid a “rupture” of the rules-based order, as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney put it.
Since sharing that proposal for a caretaker government, the situation has deteriorated in ways that demand we clearly name what is happening in Mogadishu. It is not the typical dysfunction found in Somali electoral politics. Rather, it is the intentional engineering of a multi-party electoral autocracy – a system in which the machinery of democracy is preserved in form while being stripped of its substantive elements.
The Playbook
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is pursuing a third term, and the constitution offers no barrier. The 2012 Provisional Constitution contained no presidential term limits. Since 2024, the current administration has undertaken a rushed and illegitimate constitutional amendment process that doesn’t meet the requirements for amendment set out in the Provisional Constitution.
In March 2024, the constitutional amendments appeared as democratic protections (direct elections for several federal, regional and municipal offices, election timing guarantees, and a bottom-up party system framework). To my disappointment, the January 2026 amendments have removed many of those safeguards, leaving them to be detailed in ordinary legislation.
Let me be very clear: the 4.5 clan-based system is far from ideal, and it is reasonable to argue that Somalia may not be able to afford yet another round of indirect elections. However, because the need for reform is so great, the process must be above board. A manipulated reform process does not fix the 4.5 system. It replaces one form of elite capture with another, trading clan-based power-sharing for a party-based system designed to entrench a single political faction. The question is not whether to reform, but whether a process controlled by the incumbent, rushed through a coerced parliament, and stripped of federal consensus qualifies as reform at all.
What has transpired in parliament over this latest round of constitutional amendments- armed police occupying the chamber, a female lawmaker assaulted, the suspension of 25 parliamentarians for opposing amendments of Chapter 4 of the constitution, this is not the behaviour of a government preparing for credible and fair elections. It is the behaviour of an administration manufacturing its own re-election.
The Evidence: How Manipulation is Taking Root
The March 2024 amendments promised democratic progress: direct elections at the federal, regional, and municipal levels, guarantees of election timing, and a bottom-up multi-party framework. Yet neither they nor the January 2026 amendments introduced presidential term limits. Today, there remains no constitutional barrier to indefinite re-election of the president of the Federal Republic.
First, democratic protections are being systematically moved from the Constitution, where they require a two-thirds supermajority and a referendum to change, into ordinary legislation requiring only a simple majority. The Independent Constitutional Review and Implementation Commission has claimed that provisions have been “relocated” to later constitutional chapters. When a constitution does not specify the methods, timing, and conditions for direct elections, those eprotections against election fraud disappear and the constitution then only provides aspirations rather than guarantees. There is a reason Kenya’s 2010 Constitution does not simply state that “the president shall be elected.” It specifies direct election and places presidential term limits behind referendum requirements, because its drafters understood that election rules in ordinary legislation are rules the incumbent controls.
Second, we see the reversal of democratic gatekeeping. Under the March 2024 amendments, it was up to voters to decide which parties would become national parties through the district council elections. The January 2026 amendments replace this with a top-down system, under which Parliament passes a bill governing party registration, and any organisation that obtains 10% of parliamentary seats becomes a national party. The result is that the party gatekeeping role falls to a parliament controlled by the executive, creating an almost self-reinforcing cycle: whoever controls parliament determines which parties exist, and whoever controls who enters the race has shaped the next election before a ballot is cast.
Third, it is the rush itself. Constitutional amendments of this magnitude require deliberation, federal consensus, and time. Kenya’s 2010 Constitution took two years of inclusive deliberation and a national referendum before it took effect. Somalia’s constitutional review process has excluded several actors, including several federal member states, and is being rushed through parliament, with dissenting lawmakers suspended, as an election looms. This is not incidental. Rushing constitutional reforms ahead of an election is a deliberate tactic. It creates a fait accompli locking in the electoral rules of the game before it can be scrutinised or contested.
The clearest single piece of evidence that these amendments serve the incumbent’s survival rather than democratic reform is the presidential term extension. The 2012 Provisional Constitution set a four-year presidential term. The March 2024 amendments changed this to five. If treated as having entered into force, this single provision extends the current administration’s mandate from May 2026 to May 2027, giving the administration an additional year to finalise the remaining constitutional chapters, pass an Electoral Law whose substantive provisions the incumbent would shape, and build the parliamentary majority needed to control the next election. This is not an incidental detail buried in the constitutional text. It is the amendment that most directly reveals the manipulation at hand.
A Constitution Amended Against Itself
What makes this process not merely rushed but constitutionally questionable is that the Provisional Constitution prescribes exactly how it may be amended. Under Article 132, amendments must undergo a procedural process that requires both houses of parliament to form a joint committee. That committee must ensure public debate, engage Federal Member State legislatures, and produce a report put up for adoption, requiring a two-thirds supermajority in both Houses and a referendum before amendments can be adopted.
It remains deeply unclear whether these requirements have been meaningfully fulfilled. Puntland and Jubaland have formally rejected the constitutional review process, there is little evidence of meaningful public consultation, the constitutionally mandated three-month “cooling off” period appears unobserved, and no referendum has been announced or observed. This constitution is effectively being amended in violation of its own amendment procedures.
The Zimbabwe Mirror
The parallels with Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe should alarm every Somali who cares about the trajectory our democracy is going in.
Between 2009 and 2013, during Zimbabwe’s Inclusive Government, the Zimbabwe African National Union- Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), shared power following the 2008 electoral crisis. Ahead of the 2013 elections, ZANU-PF hijacked the constitutional reform process. What was meant to be a consensus exercise became an instrument of the ruling party’s advantage. The original constitutional draft was rewritten. The Constitutional Court (controlled by ZANU-PF) imposed a rushed election deadline of July 2013, preventing the agreed-upon electoral reforms from being implemented on time. Moreover, diaspora voters, overwhelmingly supporters of the opposition, were disenfranchised.
The election went ahead. Multiple parties competed. SADC and the African Union endorsed the result, with the outcome being determined long before a single ballot was cast. Zimbabwe’s 2013 elections demonstrated that going through constitutional and electoral motions, a constitutional review process here, a referendum there, can generate legitimacy even when the underlying process has been thoroughly manipulated.
The instrument differs – a court order in Harare, a parliamentary steamroller in Mogadishu – but the logic is identical: control the process to ensure that genuine reform that provides checks and balances never constrains your advantage.
This is the lesson Somalia’s international partners must absorb. The United Nations, the African Union, the European Union, and bilateral partners engaging with Somalia’s transition must not lend legitimacy to a process that mirrors ZANU-PF’s playbook. Concretely, this means: refusing to finance, monitor, or legitimize elections conducted under a constitutional framework adopted by a procedure not meeting the requirements of Article 132; insisting on meaningful participation from the Federal Member State and opposition prior to supporting elections; and stating publicly that rushed amendments passed over the objections of excluded stakeholders cannot provide the legitimate basis for holding national elections.
The Choice at Hand
The trajectory we are currently on is not inevitable. The vicious cycle of incumbents overseeing their own succession can be broken.
Manipulations of the constitutional reform process and the electoral framework are not problems requiring different solutions. Each is a symptom of the same illness: an incumbent designing the rules of his return to power. The rushed amendments, the legislative capture of electoral rules, and the exclusion of Federal Member States are all products of the structural conflict of interest created when a sitting president works to manipulate the rules of the game to ensure his own succession.
This is why the caretaker government argument I advanced in January is now more relevant than it was at the time. In light of what the constitutional amendment process has revealed, the case is now more fundamental. It is a proposal for preventing the establishment of a multi-party electoral autocracy – a system designed not to democratize Somalia but to keep the incumbent in power under a veil of competitive politics.
The Somali people deserve elections that are genuinely competitive, administered by impartial institutions, and conducted under a constitution that commands federal consensus. That window is closing. Every day, the current administration’s electoral and constitutional manipulation hardens. But it has not closed yet- and we must act to keep it open.
The January 2026 constitutional amendments should be unequivocally rejected, not because constitutional reform is unnecessary, but because a process this consequential cannot be rushed in the final months of a sitting government’s term with the express purpose of shaping the rules of its own reelection. Reform of this magnitude must be undertaken by a succeeding administration with a fresh mandate and the time, legitimacy, and federal consensus that Article 132 demands. Anything less is not democratic reform – it’s entrenchment.
What Must Be Done
A diagnosis of the problem is not sufficient. Here is what must happen, and who must act, before the window closes.
1) For Somali Leaders: Federal Member States, the opposition, and civil society must issue a unified, unequivocal rejection of the January 2026 amendments on the grounds that they violate Article 132’s requirements for federal consensus and a referendum. This rejection must be paired with a positive demand: a time-bound, neutral caretaker government to manage the election, led by figures who have signed binding self-denying ordinances barring them from contesting it. An incumbent cannot be trusted to oversee his own succession.
2) For International Partners: Conditionality, not complicity. A public declaration that no support—financial, technical, or observational—will be provided for elections conducted under a constitution adopted in violation of Article 132. A clear statement that the international community does not recognise the claimed extension of the presidential mandate to May 2027. To finance this process is to underwrite the entrenchment of a single political faction.
3) The Objective: A pause. Not to stop reform, but to rescue it from being hijacked. A neutral authority should manage the next 6-12 months following the end of the current administration’s term in May 2026. This would create the political space to reach genuine federal consensus on the electoral framework. The current path we are heading leads to a multi-party electoral autocracy. The alternative provides a pathway towards a democratic U-turn. The difference will be determined by the courage of Somali leaders and the clarity of our partners in the weeks ahead.
Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed,
The former Prime Minister of Somalia’s Federal Government.
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