Hassan Sheikh Mohamud Is Hijacking Somalia's Democracy By Decree

Somalia's president has been in office past his mandate since May. He did not leave through the ballot box. He rewrote the rules so he could stay.

Let us be precise about what happened. Hassan Sheikh Mohamud's second term began in 2022 and ended in May 2026. Instead of handing over power, his government declared a "transition period" through a constitutional amendment. The opposition boycotted the vote on that amendment and has rejected every change since. Now the election commission has announced parliamentary polls for 15 April and a presidential vote for 15 May, and it justifies the presidential date by pointing to a five-year term that starts from the day of swearing-in. In other words, the calendar was built around the man who benefits from it.

Read that again, because it is the whole story. A sitting president, whose term has expired, has used a constitutional amendment that his rivals rejected to set the dates for elections that his rivals did not agree to. That is not a transition. That is a coup against the timetable, carried out in a suit and tie.

The government says this is "an important stage towards reinforcing the country's democratic system." Democracy does not reinforce itself through unilateral announcements. It is built through consensus, through courts, through an opposition that believes it can lose and still live with the result. Former president Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo has called the decision a "dangerous threat to Somalia's statehood and future." Former president Sharif Sheikh Ahmed has taken the reform programme to the courts and warned that a contested process "could lead to parallel elections" and even "civil conflict." When two former presidents, from opposite sides of the political divide, both sound the alarm, the question is no longer whether there is a problem. The question is who will pay for it.

Analyst Samira Gaid put it bluntly: there is "no political agreement to hold those elections." She described a government that rests on Mogadishu and "two or three allied member states," and she warned that every step is pushing the country further into fragmentation. Think about what that means on the ground. A federal government that cannot count on the support of most of its own federal member states is not in control of a country. It is in control of a capital.

And the capital is not calm. In June, rival political factions exchanged heavy gunfire in Mogadishu ahead of planned demonstrations against the president's changes. In March, federal troops were sent to oust the head of South West State, Abdiaziz Hassan Mohamed Laftagareen, a loud critic of the constitutional reform. Clashes between federal forces and his allies have flared repeatedly since, including fresh fighting reported this week. Somali citizens are being asked to trust a process whose first major act was to send soldiers after a regional leader who asked the wrong questions.

Meanwhile, al-Shabaab is still standing. The al Qaeda-allied group has fought Somalia's central government for roughly two decades. The Somali army, backed by the African Union's AUSSOM mission, has pushed the militants back in places, but al-Shabaab still controls vast stretches of the country. Little real progress has been made on holding elections outside a handful of localised pockets. So here is the crisis in one sentence: a government that cannot secure most of its territory is trying to run a national election across it, and is picking a fight with its own regions while doing so.

Consider who suffers when this goes wrong. Not the men in Villa Somalia. Not the politicians trading statements from hotel lobbies. It is the mothers in Bay and Bakool who have already lost their harvests to drought. It is the six million Somalis facing acute hunger as drought and conflict feed each other. It is the civilian who has to choose between a market stall and a checkpoint. When elites fight over who sits in the presidential chair, the bill goes to the people least able to pay it.

There is also a financial dimension that should worry every African taxpayer. Somalia's security mission depends on outside money. The United States first said it would stop funding AUSSOM by the end of 2026, then indicated the money would keep flowing for another year. A country that cannot agree on its own electoral rules is asking foreign partners to keep paying for its army. Each uncertain month of funding gives al-Shabaab a window and gives Mogadishu's rivals a reason to hedge their bets.

We have seen this movie across the continent. A leader extends his mandate in the name of stability. The opposition is labelled a spoiler. Courts are pressured or sidelined. Security forces are deployed against regional rivals. Then the leader calls the result "the will of the people." Africa has buried too many democracies under that exact script.

But Africa also has the answer, and it is not complicated. Senegal in 2024 is the proof. When President Macky Sall postponed the February election, the Constitutional Council overturned the decision, the vote went ahead in March, and power passed peacefully to Bassirou Diomaye Faye. A court said no to a sitting president, and the country was stronger for it. Botswana has handed power over through the ballot for decades, and its institutions have made it one of the most stable economies on the continent. Mauritius has built prosperity on property rights, an independent judiciary, and regular, credible elections. Closer to Somalia, Somaliland, which has never received international recognition, has held multiple competitive presidential elections and handed power over peacefully. If a self-declared state without formal recognition can manage a peaceful transfer, the federal government in Mogadishu has no excuse.

So here is what must happen, and it must happen now. The Somali courts must rule on the constitutional amendment in full view of the public, without pressure from the executive. The federal government must open a genuine negotiation with the opposition and the federal member states, with international observers and a binding written agreement on electoral rules, voter registration, and the transition of power. Election dates should be set only after that agreement exists, not before. The federal government must halt military operations against regional leaders and pull its forces back to barracks while talks proceed. The African Union, the United Nations, and Somalia's key donors should make clear that AUSSOM funding and diplomatic support depend on a credible, inclusive electoral process, not on which faction controls the calendar.

Somalia's long road to direct, one-person-one-vote elections is a worthy goal. Clan elders have shaped the country's politics for decades, and moving toward party-based competition is a reform that many Somalis want. But reform that is imposed by one faction on the others is not reform. It is conquest with a voter roll attached. Ask yourself whether you would accept a president who extended his own term and then scheduled the vote himself. If the answer is no, then you already know what Somalis are being asked to swallow.

To the Somali people, we say this: do not let anyone tell you that a rigged calendar is the price of stability. Stability built on a stolen mandate is a ticking clock. Demand a written agreement before a single ballot is printed. Demand that the courts be heard. Demand that soldiers stay out of regional capitals. And to the leaders in Mogadishu, we say this: history will not remember your amendments. It will remember whether you handed back the keys when your time was up.

Based on reporting by RFI