By Faisal A. Roble
Awash with social media, including established news outlets such as BBC and VOA Somali programs, are fallacious comparisons of the last three presidential term extensions. Some argue that all extensions that occurred in all three administrations are the same. Such a generalization could be misleading. Looking at the characters and contents of term extensions in the last three administrations as well as historicizing differences will help set the record straight for posterity’s sake.
The Content of Character
The last three presidents have different pedigree shaping their views about managing political power. Whereas former presidents Sheikh Sharif Ahmed and Hasan Sheikh Mahmoud started from humble backgrounds, President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo hails from a privileged one. Mr. Ahmed has started his adulthood as a Quranic student and later on studied Islamic jurisprudence, while Mr. Mahmoud was an activist and an educator, who later on found purpose in the activism that supported United Somali Congress (USC).
On the contrary, Mr. Farmajo was a political prep boy who early in life had a leg in career advancement due to clan privileges. In his early 20s, he was assigned to a plum position at the coveted Somali Embassy in Washington DC.
Mr. Ahmed gained fame in the Somali resistance that fiercely fought against Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia in 2007. Aided and abated by the West’s misguided “war on terror,” Ethiopia bombed Mogadishu with jet fighters armed with American Meals Ready to Eat and killed thousands of innocent civilians. UIC, to whose leadership Mr. Ahmed belonged, ultimately Meles Zenawi, founder of the beleaguered TPLF, was defeated . His entry into politics, therefore, must be analyzed within the context of UIC and the Somali resistance movement against Ethiopian intervention. Moreover, he also succeeded to end the era of warlords.
Somalia’s 8th president, Mr. Mahmoud, comes from a background that was shaped by the 1990s civil war and its aftermath. His long years of living among the residents of Mogadishu and an organizing activist (civil society) during the city’s trying times is never a liability but a real-life laboratory where one can easily grasp the daily grind of the masses; Karl Marx once wrote that the best university is life itself; this is more so when you contrast this quality of Mr. Mahmoud to Somalia’s political carpetbaggers who are known to flying in for election and fly out after they lose offices. Carpetbaggers in Somalia would carry the same meaning as “Dayuus-baro” or “untrustworthy diaspora.”
This brings me to the 9th president who in more than one way personifies Somalia’s version of political carpetbaggers. Mr. Farmajo came back to Mogadishu as a Prime Minister in 2010, left the country in days after he lost his premiership, and then returned back again in 2017 as President. He actually campaigned out of Nairobi and only set foot on Mogadishu days prior to the Election Day of February 7, 2017.
Left Somalia in the early 1980s. Mr. Farmajo was handed down a gift on a silver plate. Owing to his pedigree, with only three months experience as a custodian of archives at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he soon became the Acting First Secretary at the coveted Somali Embassy in DC. Largely unknown among Somali intellectuals during the 1990s, he had missed out on the debates and narratives developed around the debacle and solutions to Somalia’s misfortune.
As shown in his MA thesis, he is stuck to old narratives and remains oblivious to Somalia’s painful history. His clan was subjected to “genocide,” and members of the “Issaq” clan were “caught in the crossfire” between two waring southern forces, he erroneously wrote in his MA thesis. Despite all that, he climbed to the pedestal of power (premiership and president) with zero scrutinizes.
Qualitative Differences in Term Extensions
Sheikh Sharif Ahmed:
As the 7th president, Mr. Ahmed served from January 2009 to August 2012. Controlled by warlords, including Mogadishu, he took the mental of a country with no constitution. Yet, he was charged to conduct an election process within two years. Although unsuccessful, Mr. Ahmed sought a unilateral three-year extension to finish the work. Such a proposal was rejected: “the Transitional period ends on August 20, 2011, and the Assembly reached a consensus on the urgent need to extend the term of the current Transitional Federal Parliament.” In the end, a one-time 7-month extension up to August 20, 2012, was agreed.
Mr. Ahmed, aided by his then Prime Minister, Dr. Abdiweli Gas, delivered on a road map to end TFG. During that time, there were no terraces of the president showing signs or inclinations for autocracy. Although he overstayed in office for about 7 months, he always showed wisdom that assured the nation of a smooth democratic transition.
Hassan Sheikh Mahmoud:
Reigning in office from September 2012 through February 7, 2017, Mr. Mahmoud’s era would be remembered with three issues: his tumultuous relationship with four Prime Ministers, the conflict over Jubbaland state formation, and his ability to raise the profile of the country. However, two years into his administration, he transformed his challenges to opportunities by completing the federal Member States and by finding a way to collaborate with Ahmed Islam (Madoobe) on completing Jubbaland state formation; the two, later on, developed an amicable relationship.
Helped by his familiarity with the nuanced lingo of Non-governmental Organizations and those who work in the arena of economic development, he succeeded to strike a chord with the International Community. In the end, a hefty aid package and one of the most far-reaching promises for reconstruction (the Compact) was offered to him. Despite both that Mr. Mahmoud and his predecessor hail from Mogadishu, they did not show signs of autocracy or far-flung anti-democratic tendencies. They pushed the envelope, worked around the process, but never took the country to a breaking point.
Mohamed A. Farmajo:
Unlike past presidents, Mr. Farmajo inherited a well-functioning system, where, at Election Day, Mogadishu was stabilized; a modest but healthy revenue stream was coming from the port and Aden Adde International Airport (AIA); state formation per the draft of the constitution was complete; the International community was on the verge of reconstituting Somalia’s debt. Above all, the Somali people, including this writer, felt good about the state of the nation.
Like his predecessors, Mr. Farmajo wanted a term extension. His was different, though, in that it was premeditated with the goal to establish a personal rule. The price he was willing to pay was high. He sold a Somali soldier to Ethiopia – colonel Qalbidhagax – at a time when Mr. Farmajo thought EPRDG/TPLF will stay in power. Once the unexpected change came to Ethiopia, he quickly morphed into a lap dancer for two dictators in the region whom he thought would help him consolidate power.
On the day he was elected (February 7, 2017), the nation knew less about Mr. Farmajo. No one knew that he is a maverick with a large, albeit dark, footprint that extends as far as Toronto, Buffalo, Nairobi, and Mogadishu (see The New York Times, May 1, 2021). Even his most Solomon promise of never fighting his Prime Minister in his entire term was broken in an unceremonious way. His other legacy, the professionalization of the army, has faltered at the seams as he pushed Mogadishu over the cliff.
The euphoric slogan of “Farmaajo Iigeeye,’ or “take me to Farmajo,” coined by a daily laborer, turned to be a “house on sand.” Things started falling apart when he attempted to remake the fledging federal member states in his image. Although he succeeded to overthrew and installed his men in three (South West, Galmudug and Hirshabele) of the five regions, Puntland stood in his way; it is at least a more mature system. In the case of Jubbaland, he went at length, including the use of Prime Minister Abiy’s Republican bodyguard, to overthrow Madoobe but to no avail (Ethio forum New Analysis, May 2, 2021).
Mr. Farmajo’s term extension is different from the previous ones in that his objective was to centralize power under an autocratic rule. For almost four years, he has been weakening national and regional institutions. The illegal term extension on April 12, 2021 finally precipitated the April 25, 2021 of war in Mogadishu; things fall apart and the national army fought over partisan politics inside Mogadishu. Over 100,000 people were displaced in the middle of Ramadan, and the resurgence of animus clan feelings from Gedo to Garowe dominates the air.
Mr. Farmajo thought he could convert his political game into a “personalized regime.” Political scientist belief that such a game gets risky when the country has weak institutions and conflict tolerance is thin. Mr. Farmajo’s search for a “personalized regime” and power consolidation under an autocratic rule makes his term extension different and dangerous.
Faisal A. Roble
Email: [email protected]
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Faisal Roble, a writer, political analyst and a former Editor-in-Chief of WardheerNews, is mainly interested in the Horn of Africa region. He is currently the Principal Planner for the City of Los Angeles in charge of Master Planning, Economic Development and Project Implementation Division
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References
- Ali A. Mazrui, 1980, “The African Condition,” Cambridge University Press, London.
- Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, 2017, “A Challenging Transition in Somalia: A Story of Personal Courage and Conviction,” The Red Sea Press, 2017.
- Chinua Achebe, 1958, “Things Fall Apart,” Heinemann, London, 1958.
- Hussein Adam, 2008, “From Tyranny to Anarchy: The Somali Experience,” The Red Sea Pres, Inc.
- Ismail Ali Ismail, 2016, “Governance and the Scourge of Somalia,” Trafford Publishing.
- I. M. Lewis, 1983 “Nationalism & Self Determination in the Horn of Africa,” Ithaca Press, London, 1983
- Robert H. Jackson and Carl G. Rosberg, 1983 “Personal Rule in Black Africa: Prince, Autocrat, Prophet, Tyrant,” University of California Press, Berkeley, 1981.
- Ulf Johansson Dahre (ed.), 2010, “The Role of Democratic Government versus Sectarian Politics in Somalia,” Proceedings of the 9th Conference on the Horn of Africa, Lund, Sweden.
- Wardheernes.com, accessed on May 6, 2021. https://wardheernews.com/the-farmajo-doctrine-a-prelude-to-a-renewed-conflict/
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