Mogadishu (WDN) – Somalia’s National Electoral Commission has proudly unveiled the timetable for the Galmudug presidential election, scheduled for the 20th of this month. The announcement promises another round of campaigns, political meetings, candidate registrations, and the usual fanfare associated with democratic competition.

There is only one small problem. The competition is little more than political choreography, because the winner is already known.

If the script sounds familiar, it is because Somalis have seen it before in Baidoa. The sequence rarely changes. An election date is announced. Candidates are encouraged to campaign. Officials speak of transparency and democracy. The media dutifully covers the spectacle. Then, on cue, the candidate favored by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud emerges victorious.

The election itself becomes less a contest than the closing scene of a play whose ending was written long before the curtain rose. Opposition leaders argue that the National Electoral Commission no longer functions as an independent referee but as an institution whose neutrality has been compromised. In their view, the commission merely administers a process whose political destination has already been determined elsewhere.

If those criticisms prove unfounded, the Galmudug election offers an opportunity to demonstrate genuine political competition. If they are borne out, however, the exercise risks reinforcing the perception that regional leadership is decided not by competitive elections but by political endorsement from Villa Somalia.

For many Somalis, therefore, the suspense surrounding July 20 is not over who will become Galmudug’s next president. The suspense is whether this election will break from the increasingly familiar script—or simply deliver another performance in which the audience already knows the final scene before the first act begins.

WardheerNews