Why Direct Parliamentary Elections Without Institutional Neutrality and Self-Denial Risk Another Form of Elite Capture
By Dr. Abdirahman Mohamed Abdi Hashi, PhD, CPA
A significant and encouraging change is taking place in Somalia’s political debate. For years, the country remained trapped in a system in which members of Parliament were not elected by citizens but selected through clan allocation, elders, delegates, political brokers, financiers, and negotiated arrangements under the 4.5 formula.
Today, that consensus is weakening. Government officials, former presidents, former prime ministers, opposition coalitions, regional administrations, and other political actors are increasingly accepting that Somali citizens should directly elect their representatives to Parliament. Recent electoral proposals differ substantially in institutional design, but they increasingly converge on one principle: the old system in which a narrow circle of elders, delegates, political brokers, and financiers effectively determines who enters Parliament can no longer provide a sufficient basis for democratic legitimacy.
That is progress.
But it is not enough.
The emerging electoral models share a striking contradiction: citizens may directly elect Parliament, but the president would still be chosen by Parliament rather than directly by the Somali people. A recent comparison of four competing electoral proposals identifies precisely this common feature: all four support direct parliamentary elections while retaining parliamentary election of the president. [1]
This raises a question Somalia can no longer avoid:
What does Somalia gain by democratizing Parliament if the final gateway to Villa Somalia remains concentrated in the hands of a few hundred MPs who may still be exposed to political money, patronage, pressure, bargaining, and elite influence?
Directly elected parliamentarians are unquestionably more legitimate than MPs produced through 4.5 delegate selection. But democratic legitimacy does not make legislators immune from corruption or capture after they take office. International IDEA’s comparative research warns that opaque and illicit political finance can distort democratic competition, weaken political equality, and facilitate the capture of public institutions.[2]
The deeper problem is even more serious. The principal electoral proposals now being advanced are largely coming from current and former political leaders who have already held the highest offices in Somalia.
They include President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, former President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo, former Prime Ministers Abdi Farah Shirdon “Saacid” and Hassan Ali Khaire, and other senior politicians who served during the very period in which Somalia failed to complete its Constitution, failed to establish the Constitutional Court, failed to create a durable electoral system, and repeatedly returned to disputed transitions.
Yet the political conversation is again centered on how quickly these same actors can return to power, remain in power, or compete for power.
Almost no one is asking the most important question:
Who among Somalia’s political leaders is prepared to sacrifice personal ambition for the country by accepting a binding self-denying condition?
That is where my proposal for a two-year, self-denying technocratic transition remains fundamentally distinct.[3]
It does not merely propose another electoral formula.
It addresses the conflict of interest at the heart of Somalia’s political transition.
It asks not only:
How should Somalis vote?
It asks: Who should be trusted to build, administer, and supervise the democratic system – and how do we ensure that those entrusted with that responsibility cannot capture the political outcome for themselves?
The answer cannot be an incumbent seeking another term. It cannot be a former president planning a return. It cannot be a former prime minister positioning himself for the presidency. And it cannot be another political coalition negotiating rules according to the electoral calculations of its own members.
Somalia needs a neutral bridge between its failed transitional order and genuine democracy.
That bridge requires a self-denying technocratic authority whose members cannot compete in the elections they prepare; a completed Constitution; an operational Constitutional Court; independent electoral institutions; political-finance safeguards; security neutrality; and a binding sunset date.
Somalia must not stop halfway.
I. The Rejection of 4.5 Is Progress
For decades, Somalia called itself a republic while denying almost its entire adult population the right to directly choose national representatives. Under variations of the 4.5 system, parliamentary seats were distributed through clan allocations and filled through elders, delegates, political intermediaries, and negotiated processes. Citizens remained largely spectators. That arrangement was always supposed to be temporary. Instead, it became permanent.
The 4.5 system weakened citizenship, entrenched clan arithmetic, rewarded political brokerage, facilitated corruption, and created a Parliament whose legitimacy did not arise directly from the Somali voter. The fact that political actors are now increasingly accepting direct parliamentary elections is therefore significant.
The four electoral models recently compared in Somalia’s political debate – the 2018 Electoral Bill, the 2024 Electoral Act, the Somali Future Council (SFC) proposal, and the Somali Unity Council (SUC) model – all support direct election of Parliament in one form or another. [1]
This should be welcomed. The Somali citizen must become a voter, not a spectator. But Somalia must be careful not to mistake partial democratic reform for the completion of democracy.
II. Parliament May Be Democratized While the Presidency Remains Vulnerable to Capture
The emerging models share a common structure:
Citizens elect Parliament. Parliament elects the president.
This is certainly better than the old system:
Clan elders select delegates. Delegates select MPs. MPs select the president.
But it still leaves the country’s most consequential political office one step removed from the citizen.
That is not inherently undemocratic. Many constitutional democracies use parliamentary selection for heads of state. But Somalia must be judged according to its own institutional reality, not against an abstract constitutional model.
The question is whether Somalia should preserve a small presidential electorate when:
• Political finance remains opaque;
• Judicial institutions remain incomplete;
• The Constitutional Court has never been established;
• State resources can be politicized;
• Security institutions remain vulnerable to partisan pressure; and
• Presidential contests have historically been surrounded by intense political and financial bargaining.
A Parliament elected directly by citizens can still be influenced after taking office. That vulnerability is not theoretical: political bargaining, patronage, and pressure have been persistent features of Somalia’s federal political system.
An MP can possess democratic legitimacy and still face bribery, inducement, patronage, party pressure, clan pressure, intimidation, or the influence of those controlling state institutions. The problem is institutional, not personal. A sound democratic system should not depend on assuming that every legislator is incorruptible. It should reduce opportunities for capture.
Somalia must therefore ask a question that its political class appears reluctant to confront:
If Somali citizens are trusted to elect their Parliament, why should the possibility of directly electing their president be excluded from serious constitutional debate?
I do not argue that direct presidential election must automatically be adopted. It raises legitimate questions about executive concentration, federal balance, campaign financing, majoritarianism, security, and the relationship between the president and prime minister.
But the issue must be honestly debated.
The political class should not treat parliamentary selection of the president as an unquestionable default merely because that is the system through which many of its members hope to return to Villa Somalia.
Read more: Somalia’s Democratic Transition Cannot Stop Halfway
By Dr. Abdirahman Mohamed Abdi Hashi, PhD, CPA
Former Candidate for President of the Federal Republic of Somalia, 2012 and 2022
Former Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources
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