By Hon Ahmed Abdi Koshin, member of Somalia’s Federal Parliament representing a constituency in Somaliland, and
Dr Abdifatah Ismael Tahir, former member of Somalia’s Federal Parliament representing a constituency in Somaliland from 2016 to 2022.
Somalia’s political settlement, however unevenly accepted, rested on the expectation that differences and divisions would be managed through bargaining between federal and regional actors. The takeover of Baidoa by forces loyal to President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud on March 30, 2026, followed by the resignation of South West State President Abdiaziz Hassan Mohamed “Laftagareen,” shows that this premise is giving way to a different logic of state-making, one increasingly grounded in violence.
The president now appears more confident that authority can be consolidated through military leverage. That confidence has not emerged in a vacuum. Turkey’s expanding military support has altered political calculations among both allies and rivals and strengthened the federal centre’s capacity to shift the internal balance of power in its favour. Whether understood as direct intervention or strategic enablement, the political effect is the same. It expands Mogadishu’s coercive options. This shift has unfolded within a wider diplomatic environment that has been notably permissive.
The European Union remains deeply invested in Somalia’s state-security architecture through support for security capacity and stabilisation, yet criticism over Baidoa has remained limited. Italy has particularly worked quietly to soften European scrutiny, particularly given the importance of European financial support to the federal authorities. The broader concern is therefore clear. When external actors prioritise executive partnership over political inclusion, they enable violent centralisation even without explicitly endorsing it.
The African Union context also matters. With the AU Commission now chaired by Mahmoud Ali Youssouf of Djibouti, regional and continental platforms are not politically neutral. In the Somali political field, such institutions are mediated through alignments, rivalries, and strategic interests. For those already concerned about state capture, Baidoa deepens the sense that international and regional institutions are becoming less a restraint on executive overreach than a setting within which it can be normalised.
In that sense, Baidoa is a template. It points towards a future in which Somali state-making advances through successive territorial capture, each justified in the language of sovereignty. Yet coercive consolidation should not be mistaken for a durable political settlement. It hollows out trust in dialogue, weakens the credibility of negotiation, and teaches political actors that survival depends less on consensus than on force. Once that lesson hardens, the political field is likely to be shaped increasingly by containment and pre-emption rather than by bargaining and accommodation.
Mogadishu’s elites have so far failed to mount a coherent response to these attempts at power grab, and that failure is not accidental. Some have been neutralised through appointments. Others have been drawn into economic interests tied to the current order. Others still remain silent because they fear the immediate insecurity in Mogadishu more than they fear the instability, and the danger that the country edges towards wider civil war, inherent in over-centralisation. These are familiar grounds of political absorption, and together they narrow the social and political base from which meaningful dissent might emerge.
No doubt, elite loyalty in Somalia is often contingent, transactional, and highly sensitive to changing political timelines. As electoral horizons shorten and new opportunities emerge, today’s silence may become tomorrow’s repositioning. That shift will not occur on its own. It requires an organised opposition capable of absorbing political fallout and converting dispersed discontent into coordinated action. Such a counterweight need not be offensive in character. It would be enough for it to function as a serious political and defensive bloc, able to deter unilateralism and persuade hesitant actors that another centre of gravity exists.
That is why the Mogadishu-based opposition faces a strategic choice between continued mutual suspicion and meaningful coordination. It cannot remain distrustful, hesitant, and reactive while authority is being consolidated around it. The same logic extends to Puntland, Jubaland, and Somaliland. They may not share the same political aspiration, but they do share an interest in resisting a future in which power flows only from Mogadishu, backed by external sponsors and legitimised through coercive facts on the ground.
The threat lies in the way Turkey is combining diplomatic reach, financial influence, and military assistance to reinforce the administration in Mogadishu, irrespective of how unrepresentative that administration may be. Here, Turkey has become a central provider of training, equipment, and broader security support, while also using its regional diplomatic ties to advance the interests of the current leadership. Qatar has helped consolidate this alignment by underwriting key financial aspects of Turkish involvement.
For those of us from Somaliland, Baidoa raises a key question: is this an isolated episode, or part of a broader shift in which externally backed coercive centralisation is becoming the new logic of power in Somalia? The answer lies in preparedness grounded in a comparable strategic logic. That means Somaliland must either secure, or accelerate efforts to consolidate, external backing of its own, organised through a similar division of labour in which one partner provides capabilities and technical support while another helps finance the arrangement.
Stated plainly, Israel could expedite the delivery of equipment such as drones and armoured vehicles, training, and operational expertise, while the UAE could help underwrite the financial costs. The logic is that if Mogadishu’s military and diplomatic position is being strengthened through coordinated external partnership, Somaliland would need a comparable framework of support to preserve deterrence and defend its territory effectively.
Baidoa therefore marks Somalia’s entry into a new phase in which force is becoming a primary language of political settlement. Those committed to democratic restraint must in fact read each territorial takeover as part of a wider pattern. At stake are the emerging rules of Somali politics, and those rules are changing quickly.
Hon Ahmed Abdi Koshin serves as a Member of Somalia’s Federal Parliament representing a constituency in Somaliland.
Dr Abdifatah Ismael Tahir served as a Member of Somalia’s Federal Parliament representing a constituency in Somaliland from 2016 to 2022.