Somalia: the way forward - fourteen years later

From 4.5 Political Entrapment to a Two-Year Technocratic Transition for One-Person-One-Vote Democracy

Executive Summary

In 2012, I warned that rushing Somalia into a so-called permanent government without completing the constitutional, security, institutional, and electoral foundations of the state would be catastrophic. I argued then that the country needed a carefully designed two-year transitional government to prepare the nation for a genuine constitutional order, credible elections, accountable institutions, and a government chosen by citizens rather than selected through elite bargaining. [1]

Fourteen years later, that warning has become Somalia’s political reality.

The 4.5 clan-based power-sharing arrangement, defended for years as a temporary mechanism for inclusion, has become the machinery through which Somalia’s political class reproduces itself. It has normalized indirect elections, weakened citizenship, institutionalized clan arithmetic, excluded ordinary Somalis from meaningful political participation, and created a political marketplace in which power is negotiated among elites rather than earned from the people. Scholarly work on Somalia’s peace and constitution-making process has similarly shown how 4.5, initially tolerated as a transitional conflict-management device, became embedded in political practice even though the constitutional project was supposed to move Somalia toward broader citizen-based legitimacy. [S6] [S7]

Somalia’s crisis today is not the failure of democracy. It is the failure to reach democracy.

Since 2012, successive administrations promised one-person-one-vote elections, constitutional completion, judicial independence, security-sector reform, and national reconciliation. None delivered. The country has instead moved from one indirect electoral cycle to another, each time accompanied by disputes over legitimacy, allegations of manipulation, delayed transitions, fractured federal relations, politicized security forces, and renewed mistrust between Mogadishu and the Federal Member States. [2] [3] [4] Independent analysis by the International Crisis Group has warned that the 2026 electoral dispute risks deepening political turmoil unless the government, opposition, and Federal Member States reach a credible compromise. [S2]

The present crisis is therefore not accidental. It is the predictable result of a system that I warned against in 2012: a political order built on temporary arrangements made permanent, elite bargains disguised as national consensus, and constitutional deadlines repeatedly sacrificed to the survival interests of incumbents.

Somalia now needs a national reset. Not another extension. Not another elite bargain. Not another indirect election under the same failed formula. And not a rushed one-person-one-vote slogan without the infrastructure, security, public trust, or institutions necessary to make it real.

Somalia needs a two-year inclusive technocratic transitional government with a self-denying mandate: its leaders must not contest the next election or benefit politically from the process they supervise. Its sole purpose should be to complete the constitution, establish the Constitutional Court, depoliticize security institutions, rebuild electoral infrastructure, protect public resources, review strategic national contracts, prepare a credible voter registration system, and deliver Somalia’s first genuine citizen-based democratic election.

This is not a call to prolong the political life of any incumbent. It is a call to end the cycle that has allowed incumbents and opposition elites alike to manipulate weak institutions, clan formulas, and constitutional uncertainty for political survival.

The choice before Somalia is clear: continue the 4.5 trap and drift toward deeper fragmentation or use this exceptional moment to build the foundations of a real republic.

I. The Warning of 2012

When Somalia’s transitional period was ending in 2012, the international community and Somali political elites were determined to produce a permanent government by a fixed deadline. The argument at the time was that Somalia had to “end the transition.” But ending the transition in name without completing the work of transition in substance was always dangerous.

In my 2012 paper, The Way Forward for Somalia, I argued that forming a permanent government prematurely would only recycle the same political class, deepen corruption, provoke regional resistance, and leave Somalia vulnerable to exploitation by internal and external actors. I specifically warned that, unless the necessary foundations were first laid, Somalia would likely face greater disintegration, disenfranchisement, public revolt, regional tension, continued corruption, and the misuse of the country’s natural resources. [1]

That warning was not about one president, one parliament, one prime minister, or one political faction. It was about a system.

The system was built on a contradiction. Somalia claimed to be moving toward constitutional democracy while relying on an indirect clan-based arrangement that denied ordinary citizens the right to choose their leaders. It claimed to be building permanent institutions while leaving the constitution provisional. It claimed to be constructing a federal republic while failing to settle the most basic questions of power-sharing, resource-sharing, judicial authority, electoral legitimacy, and security command. The 2012 Provisional Constitution itself created the legal basis for a federal republic and constitutional governance, but it also left essential institutions and settlement questions unfinished, including the effective operation of constitutional adjudication and the completion of the constitutional review process. [S1]

Fourteen years later, Somalia is still paying the price for that contradiction.

The 2012 political settlement did not complete the transition. It froze the transition. It converted provisional arrangements into permanent political habits. It gave Somalia the appearance of government without the accountability of citizenship-based rule.

II. The 4.5 Trap

The 4.5 formula was originally presented as a temporary device to manage representation after civil war. In practice, it became the operating system of Somali politics.

Under 4.5, political power is not derived from the free consent of citizens. It is mediated through clan elders, brokers, financiers, armed leverage, and elite negotiations. The ordinary Somali citizen is reduced from voter to spectator. Leaders do not rise primarily because they persuaded the public with a program of government; they rise because they navigated a narrow selection process controlled by political intermediaries.

This has had devastating consequences.

First, 4.5 has weakened the meaning of citizenship. A democratic republic rests on the principle that every citizen has equal political value. The 4.5 system rests on the opposite principle: that political value is first filtered through clan identity and then allocated according to negotiated clan arithmetic.

Second, 4.5 has rewarded manipulation over merit. It has encouraged politicians to invest more in clan brokerage than in public service, more in transactional alliances than in national programs, and more in short-term survival than in institution-building.

Third, 4.5 has made corruption rational. In a system where parliamentary seats are indirectly selected and presidential power is decided through a small electoral college, money becomes a political weapon. Public funds, foreign assistance, security institutions, and state contracts are easily converted into instruments of electoral influence.

Fourth, 4.5 has prevented genuine accountability. A president elected indirectly can always claim national legitimacy while being accountable in practice to the elites who delivered the votes.

Parliamentarians selected through clan bargains are rarely accountable to a real constituency. Ministers appointed through balancing formulas may represent political convenience rather than competence.

Finally, 4.5 has trapped Somalia in repeated legitimacy crises. Each indirect election produces a government that claims a national mandate but lacks direct citizen authorization.

Each incumbent promises one-person-one-vote, then fails to prepare for it. Each delayed election becomes a constitutional crisis. Each crisis produces another bargain. The cycle repeats.

Research on Somalia’s peace processes and constitution-making shows that the 4.5 formula was not meant to become a permanent constitutional identity for the state; it was tolerated as part of transitional bargaining while Somalia was expected to move toward more legitimate and inclusive constitutional governance. [S6] Abdullahi Abdulkadir Adam’s study of power-sharing in Somalia likewise treats 4.5 as a conflict-management mechanism whose continued dominance must be measured against its impact on state-building, democratic legitimacy, and the reduction of clan-based politics. [S7]

This is why Somalia’s problem cannot be solved by changing personalities alone. The same system will reproduce the same incentives.

A political system that repeatedly elevates leaders through clan arithmetic cannot suddenly produce a merit-based state by changing titles. If a minister, deputy prime minister, commissioner, or electoral official is chosen because he or she fills a 4.5 slot rather than because of demonstrable competence, independence, and integrity, the appointment remains part of the problem even if it is described as technocratic.

III. Fourteen Years of Recycled Crisis

Since 2012, Somalia has held repeated federal elections, but none has fully broken the logic of indirect elite selection.

The 2016 election was supposed to move Somalia closer to one-person-one-vote. It did not. The 2020/2021 election was also preceded by promises of universal suffrage. Instead, the country entered a mandate-extension crisis, armed confrontation in Mogadishu, and a delayed indirect process. In 2022, Somalia again returned to indirect selection, and Hassan Sheikh Mohamud returned to power. In my presidential candidate speech before the Federal Parliament of Somalia in May 2022, I reiterated that the failure of leadership, combined with the continued entrenchment of the insidious indirect elections at every level, is driving the country’s fragmentation and its unrelenting crises.

The pattern is now unmistakable: each administration promises constitutional completion, one-person-one-vote elections, national reconciliation, anti-corruption reform, security reform, and sovereignty over strategic assets. None delivers. Federal relations deteriorate, public trust declines, security institutions remain vulnerable to politicization, and national resources remain exposed to opaque bargaining.

The 2026 crisis is therefore not a sudden event. It is the accumulated result of unresolved failures.

The current dispute over constitutional amendments, electoral laws, federal relations, and presidential mandate is only the latest expression of a deeper problem: Somalia still lacks a universally accepted constitutional mechanism for transferring power when political actors disagree. Several sources on the 2026 legitimacy crisis emphasize the danger of unilateral reforms, elite deadlock, and the absence of political consent in a fragile settlement. [2] [4] [11] ConstitutionNet’s assessment of the 2026 constitutional review process similarly notes that the March 2026 amendments formally concluded more than fourteen years of review but provoked strong reactions from Federal Member States and opposition groups, leaving serious questions of legitimacy and regional autonomy unresolved. [S3]

The March 2026 constitutional amendments have also been reported by Reuters as changes that could extend the president’s term and delay elections, while analysts noted continuing ambiguity over whether they explicitly prolong the current mandate.

[S4] Earlier, the Associated Press reported that a January 2026 parliamentary session over proposed constitutional amendments descended into scuffles and shouting, reflecting the depth of the institutional dispute and the continued dangers associated with mandate extension politics.

[S5]

The absence of a Constitutional Court has been especially damaging. Without an authoritative judicial body to interpret the constitution, every major constitutional question becomes a political fight. When law cannot resolve disputes, power does. When power resolves disputes, armed actors become relevant. This is how constitutional ambiguity becomes a security threat.

In my 2022 political platform for the Badbaado Qaran Party, I called for the establishment of a Constitutional Court within six months and the rebuilding of federal and regional courts within one year. That proposal is even more urgent today.

Somalia cannot continue treating constitutional interpretation as a matter for political negotiation among the very actors who benefit from ambiguity.

Dr. Abdirahman Mohamed Abdi Hashi, PhD, CPA

Email: amabdi77@gmail.com

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