JOWHAR (WDN) – What was officially billed as a by-election in Jowhar today turned into a political charade, as two Federal Parliamentary seats were handed, uncontested, to relatives of deceased MPs—cementing a troubling trend of hereditary succession masquerading as democracy.

In the election,  Mohamed Diriye, brother of the late Minister and MP Khadijo Mohamed Diriye, was “elected” to the HOP097 seat with 78 votes. Similarly, Abdulqadir Mahmoud Mohamed, son of the late MP Mahmoud Mohamed Seysey, secured the HOP098 seat with 90 votes.

What stands out is not the vote count, but the complete absence of competition. No challengers. No campaigns. No debate. Just a quiet coronation in a region where political legitimacy is increasingly inherited, not earned.

“This wasn’t an election—it was a selection,” said one political analyst in Mogadishu, who asked not to be named. “The outcome was known before a single vote was cast. The public has been reduced to spectators while families recycle power among themselves.”

The event underscores a growing pattern in Somalia’s electoral landscape: a feudal-style political order in which bloodlines matter more than merit, and clan and kin dictate who rules, regardless of public consent or transparency.

With less than a year remaining in the current Parliament’s term, today’s events cast a long shadow over any hope for democratic reform. What took place in Jowhar wasn’t an exercise in representative governance—it was a stage-managed inheritance ceremony cloaked in the language of democracy.

WardheerNews