By Isha Qarsoon
Somalia’s conflicts are often treated as separate stories: a regional election, a commander’s defection, a disputed appointment, a militia clash. Yet families flee fighting, soldiers turn their weapons on other Somali soldiers, and communities carry old grievances into new political confrontations. The connection is a government promising Soomaali heshiis ah while pursuing an agreement that increasingly resembles submission. Those who accept its preferred arrangements are included; those who resist are treated as obstacles.
Hassan Sheikh Mohamud did not create every conflict now unfolding across Somalia. His responsibility lies in how he responds to the country’s divisions. A president can establish rules that allow opponents to coexist, contest authority and accept decisions. Or he can exploit those divisions to win a series of temporary victories. Such victories may protect an officeholder while making the country harder to govern. That pattern is visible across Somalia’s federal states.
For ordinary citizens, public authority has become difficult to read. A uniform no longer identifies a dependable authority. An election announcement does not guarantee an accepted process. A reconciliation ceremony does not show which concessions were made, whose interests were traded or how long the arrangement will last. People bear the consequences while decisions about their safety remain hidden in negotiations among powerful men. This lack of transparency is a governance failure: the public cannot hold a bargain accountable when its terms are concealed.
After Puntland rejected his constitutional and electoral programme, HSM tried to weaken its resistance by placing local forces under federal command, turning a political dispute into an armed confrontation. In August, Puntland seized federal-aligned bases and expelled or absorbed the forces stationed there. General Jimcaale’s men at Ligle camp also returned to Puntland’s command. Mogadishu lost military influence, and the underlying dispute remained unresolved. HSM had secured neither Puntland’s agreement nor its submission; he had added fighting to a political rupture.
Jubaland had already shown the danger of trying to overcome a member state’s political resistance by force. After Ahmed Madobe proceeded with a regional election that Mogadishu rejected, HSM deployed federal troops to Ras Kamboni. Jubaland’s forces defeated them in December 2024. Madobe remained in office, and the electoral dispute remained unresolved. The intervention secured neither his removal nor his cooperation; it sent Somali soldiers into battle against other Somali soldiers over a dispute that military defeat could not settle.
In Gedo, HSM relied on Abdirashid Janan to strengthen federal control in a region contested by Mogadishu and Jubaland. In August 2026, Janan reached an accommodation with Jubaland and took his forces with him. The commander Mogadishu had used to extend its influence became the vehicle for losing it, revealing how heavily federal authority depended on one man’s political arrangements. Janan resolved his dispute with Jubaland, but not the competing claims over Gedo or the risks residents face when the next alliance breaks down.
In Southwest, the armed conflict followed the federal effort to remove Laftagareen. Political tension over elections and constitutional authority had been building, but the dispute became a military confrontation when federal troops and allied forces entered Baidoa in March. Laftagareen resigned after they took control. His removal did not end the crisis it had triggered: forces loyal to him later fought federal and regional government forces in May, August and September, injuring civilians and repeatedly bringing violence into Baidoa. HSM replaced the regional president, but the method of removal turned a political dispute into an armed struggle that residents continued to endure.
In Hirshabelle, HSM’s support for Ali Guudlaawe’s return to office has sharpened a dispute over which communities hold power in the regional government. Vice-President Yusuf Dabageed accuses him of abandoning a promise that the presidency would pass to a leader from Hiiraan. Armed men have already seized voter-registration centres in Beledweyne. These events unfold amid recurrent communal fighting along the Hiiraan–Middle Shabelle boundary, including around Ceel Baraf. In September, army soldier Ahmed Shire Hussein was captured near Ceel Baraf and killed in a reported clan-revenge attack after being filmed pleading for his life. The killing exposed the government’s inability to protect even its own soldiers travelling home. The electoral dispute is therefore entering communities already divided by violence and unresolved grievances. Pressing ahead without addressing objections to the process risks turning the election into another cause for armed mobilisation. Installing a preferred president would not resolve the divisions that make his authority contested.
Galmudug faces an electoral dispute while older conflicts remain unsettled. In western Mudug, neighbouring communities have repeatedly fought over land and water, with killings provoking retaliation across the Puntland–Galmudug boundary. Those conflicts predate the current controversy, but they define the conditions in which HSM is pursuing his political programme: communities remain armed, grievances unresolved, and regional institutions unable to provide a dependable means of settling disputes. An election that excludes significant constituencies could give those communities another reason to mobilise.
The dispute involving Towfiiq, led by Sheikh Shakir of Ahlu Sunna, raises a related question of political inclusion. After successfully challenging the earlier election, the party rejected the rerun timetable. The commission says Towfiiq did not apply to participate. That explanation matters, but it does not remove the political risk posed by a significant organised constituency remaining outside the process. Renewed war is not inevitable, but an uncontested announcement is not evidence of reconciliation.
In the Northeast, federal recognition has added a member state without settling the disputes that threaten its survival. Local aspirations for self-government are real, but Somaliland and Puntland both claim territory within its proposed boundaries, and agreement among the communities it seeks to govern remains incomplete. HSM’s support cannot resolve those conflicts by conferring federal status. If the new state becomes a means of weakening Puntland, its residents will bear the consequences of a confrontation shaped by federal political interests. They need an administration that can protect them and settle disputes with their neighbours. Recognition alone provides neither.
Mogadishu has also borne the cost of unresolved political disputes. In June, government forces and opposition-aligned militias fought in residential neighbourhoods, forcing civilians to flee. Elsewhere, protests over Turkey’s military role and allegations of civilian casualties demanded a government response. Parliamentary Speaker Abdulkadir Mohamed Nur instead attributed the burning of Turkish flags to a foreign agenda. The accusation did not address whether civilians had been harmed, who authorised the operations or how those responsible would be held accountable. It shifted suspicion onto the protesters while leaving their complaints unanswered.
The opposition offers little assurance that replacing the president would change this practice. A candidate can condemn HSM’s conduct while expecting to exercise the same discretion once in office. The relevant test is whether he would accept rules governing appointments, public spending and security operations even when those rules constrain him. Would he accept a court decision against his government? Would he allow an unqualified supporter to lose a position? Opposition to the incumbent establishes none of those commitments.
These conflicts have different histories, but they expose the same institutional failure: political settlements repeatedly leave unanswered who has authority, what limits apply and who can enforce them. Negotiation may stop fighting temporarily. But when a settlement gives participants only enough to suspend confrontation, the dispute remains ready to resume. A commander changes sides, a promised position goes to somebody else or an election threatens an incumbent, and the bargain collapses. The country must then negotiate again because its institutions were never empowered to settle the issue.
HSM’s government is also embedding political obligations in the daily operation of public institutions. Appointing an unqualified person as a favour makes that employee dependent on the patron who secured and protects the position. Accountability runs to the benefactor, while the public receives poor service. Over time, employees and patrons develop a shared interest in resisting reform. A future president who enforces attendance, requires qualifications or removes an incompetent employee may discover how many powerful people the decision threatens. Appeasing them creates further obligations and makes the next correction harder. Each appointment may solve an immediate political problem while making institutional reform more costly and destabilizing.
State building requires public institutions that can function despite political resistance. A ministry must be able to discipline an employee. A court must be able to decide a dispute and have its judgment enforced. An election must allow political competition without sending the losers to war. Each improvement makes government more dependable; each exemption secured through political influence weakens it. Soomaali heshiis ah must mean that Somalis can disagree while living under institutions that protect them. If the president secures agreement by rewarding compliance, excluding opponents or overpowering them, his victories will continue to deepen the conflicts they claim to resolve.
Isha Qarsoon
Email: Ishaqarsoon1@gmail.com
——-
Isha Qarsoon- is a platform dedicated to addressing critical issues pertaining to good governance, corruption, and social challenges.