- No serious international investment will ever occur without stability, security and real law and order.
- The population has long since lost faith in its leaders.
Image: FILE
I have recently come back from Somalia and had the opportunity to meet with politicians, businesspeople and civil society groups in order to collect insights about the ongoing political situation. An unstable Somalia is a very critical security threat to Kenya and it should keenly follow up on electoral process in that country so as to be prepared for any eventuality.
The current House of the People (HOP) election is a pointer as to who will become the next president of Somalia at a critical juncture in Somalia’s history. The past few weeks have seen Federal Member States (FMS) conduct a majority of their HOPs selections, which have been mired by serious allegations of rigging and electoral malpractice in all the regions.
Weak security structures have only exacerbated mistrust between the Somali Federal Government (SFG) and the FMS. This has been compounded by the lack of communication between the president and the prime minister.
Al Shabaab has taken the opportunity to highlight glaring fractures in Somali governance by conducting coordinated attacks, suicide missions and assassinations. On February 20 two elders, who were delegates supporting a popular candidate from one of the major clans in Puntland, were killed in a bomb blast at a hotel in the commercial city of Bossaso where they were staying. Today, there was an attempt to assassinate the president of Puntland while coming into the same city.
Security lapses are due to two main factors: the Somali president and prime minister are not on talking terms - systemically weakening an already fraught election process. Second, weak security infrastructure to oversee the elections provides ample opportunity for election saboteurs to undermine the election cycle.
Somalia is at a critical juncture in its history. International partners are losing interest. No serious international investment will ever occur without stability, security and real law and order. The population has long since lost faith in its leaders. Another sham election cycle could well confine Somalia to the dustbin of history.
Various presidential candidates are currently preparing their HOP supporters and delegates throughout the country, and it appears that there is strong competition at regional state level to control the process of selecting the delegates - who in turn will select the Lower House members.
It is these Lower House MPs who will then elect the president of Somalia in an indirect election format, which will be observed and endorsed by the internal community in Mogadishu.
The forgoing president, Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo, who remains highly unpopular, is still considered the front runner due to his incumbency and its benefits. He is facing a host of other presidential candidates, most of whom have made political errors that have significantly damaged their chances amongst likely Lower House members.
A few - less than a handful - have the knowledge, experience and, critically, the credibility to win a Lower House vote and lead Somalia forward into the 21st century with vision and balance.
One of those candidates is Abdulkadir Osoble Ali, a vibrant leader who has served Somalia as the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee for the past two parliamentary terms. He is an educated, seasoned businessman, with more than a decade of government and foreign policy experience. Critically, amongst the Somali political elite, he is instantly recognized as a voice that must be considered, and he is trusted even by his political competitors.
The current electoral process is being conducted in an insecure environment, which has been plagued by political impunity, which has meant that the selection of Lower House candidates has been staged-managed by regional state presidents and their retinue/cronies. It has meant that the selection process has been necessarily slow and fraught with political intrigue at every turn.
It is now very unlikely that the February 25 deadline will be met and this might throw a huge cloud of doubt as to whether a presidential elections will ever conducted without drama. This process will continue to be slow-walked unless the UN and international community decide to take consequential action against election saboteurs.
Al Shabaab, criminal groups, and political opportunists will continue to disrupt and delegitimize the election process at every turn. It continues to be in their interests to insure a weak and unstable presidency, legislature, and government apparatus.
This will force/threaten the international community to walk away -clearly not an option given that Somalia’s population is young, frustrated and largely unemployed and idle- clearly a regional security threat and especially to Kenya which hosts the largest Somali population refugees anywhere in the world.
The threats to Somalia’s future are all too real. At this consequential moment, Somalia needs a consequential leader that has the vision and the leadership to make a paradigm shift toward sustainable peace and prosperity.
The writer is a Horn of Africa political analyst