WHY SOMALI GOVERNMENTS FAIL

There is an unfortunate precedent that Somali transitional governments (TFGs or TNGs) transition to nowhere other than to another transitional government with a predictable outcome of incoherency, corruption, incompetence, lack of national plan for governance, and lack of tenacity in the face of adversity. We have all seen a movie called the Differences within the TFG! Or, the differences between the prime minister and the president!  These movies have a common beginning and end. As I write this, I am under no illusion that the task of saving Somalia from self destruction, anarchy, and tribal/ideological conflict is easy.  Rather, I am convinced that the personal qualities and the qualifications of the leaders are the key factors that determine the success and the failure of the transitional government. I also believe there are able and qualified individuals that have served in these transitional governments. But, they were unable to make a difference because as the Somali saying goes, it was, “reer ninna rarayo ninna furayo” (A household where some are packing and loading to move, while at the same time, others are unpacking and unloading to stay). In this article, I give a brief account of the usual routines of past and present Somali transitional governments. Then, I explore and discuss the common denominator of their failures.

At the end of each Somali peace conference, the transitional charter is adapted. The new charter calls for dual executive government (president and prime minister), even though the responsibilities of the president and the prime minister are unclear or cloudy at best. After months of bickering and infighting against each other over seat allocations, each clan submits the list of their MP’s and the transitional parliament is formed.

The new parliament is a bunch of clannish, less educated, slackers, khat chewers, and nobodies whose main objective is to sell their votes during and after a presidential election. The parliament elects a new speaker. There are no qualifications for the speakership other than belonging to Digil and Mirrifle clan. Then, the presidential election gets underway and the candidates hire so-called “campaigners” who distribute money to the members of the parliament on behalf of their candidate in the form of bribes. The election of the president and the prime minister is largely formality because in theory, it is open to all Somali clans. In practice however, only Darood and Hawiye can apply. The whole selection process of the president is based on three criteria: The clan or sub-clan the candidate belongs to, how much land or militia he and his clan control, and the amount of money available to him for bribery. The important matters such as the candidate’s education, experience, and his personal qualities: religion (spirituality), integrity, statesmanship, decisiveness, political and administrative skills, and impartiality (his ability to be impartial among Somalia’s feuding clans) receive very little attention.

The new president appoints a prime minister based on predetermined power sharing or misguided political calculations. The prime minister is generally better educated and more technocratic than the president or more educated with less experience. When the new prime minister attempts to form his cabinet, he discovers that the president has made commitments to many individuals to appoint them ministerial positions. The prime minster faces conflicting pressures from all sides, including, the Somali clans and sub-clans who are all vying for more cabinet positions and from the president who wants to fulfill his campaign promises and appoint important cabinet posts to his friends and loyalists. Then there is pressure from the international community who demand a smaller and more efficient cabinet. The process generally ends with a compromise between the two men. The president gets some positions and the prime minister appoints the rest based on clan quotas. The new government gets tepid applause from the international community.

The reaction from the Somali public is always mixed depending on the makeup and the governing philosophy of the new administration. The new cabinet has a turbulent start caused by the hard feelings ensued from the cabinet selection process. The prime minister inaugurates his fractious cabinet who behave more like parliamentarians than cabinet ministers. After all, some of these people have never worked for anyone in their lifetime, therefore; they don’t take orders from anyone, including the prime minister. There is no cohesive structure within the government. The government is plagued with rumors about cabinet ministers being allies of the president or the prime minister and vice versa. The parliament is even less disciplined. There is always some derision that divides the parliament into two or more factions. Instead of becoming a co-equal branch of the government with an oversight power, the members either completely disappear (most likely in Kenya) or join one of the illegitimate factions within the government. For example, President’s group, Prime Minister’s group, Mogadishu group, Nairobi group, Asmara group, etc. After the honeymoon period, usually lasting one month to one year, the differences between the government leaders become public and the power struggle intensifies. At this point, the prime minister or the speaker is sacked individually or in unison. Then the government either collapses out of necessity or the transitional period ends without producing any tangible results. 

Because of the chronic failures in the transitional institutions, there is a need to examine the leadership behaviors of these governments and why they have not lived up to the expectations. This is a good research question that can be answered only with more research study. But, that does not preclude me from discussing the obvious leadership failures and organizational weaknesses of these governments. The last three presidents, Abdulqasim Salad Hasan, Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, and Sheikh Sharif Sh. Ahmed were elected because of their perceived political base and the number of militias the clans controlled at the time. I believe it is fair to conclude, at the end, the perceived strengths became a net negative or a liability for these presidents. In the case of Abdiqasim, he was unable to control or incorporate his clan or sub-clans militias into his government. In fact, said militias became an obstacle to his government to control Mogadishu and were functionless. He failed to offer any meaningful pacification or and reconciliation program.

Abdillahi Yusuf was a different case. Although he had some popular and financial support from his region of Puntland, his government never had meaningful presence in Puntland, nor did he make a serious attempt to bring Puntland under his government’s authority. The local Puntland administration at the time considered themselves as co-equals of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) by acting more sovereign than they really were. On the other hand, the fact that Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed was from Puntland plus his alliance with Ethiopia became a liability in Hawiye dominated Mogadishu due to tribal rivalries between his Darood tribe and Hawiye. In addition, because of his tough talking-confrontational style, he alienated many people from the government. President Sharif Sh. Ahmed was elected because of the conventional wisdom at that time that he will make all remaining Asmara Factions, as well as non-Ashabaab Islamic Courts Union members and their militias to join the government. This was an attempt to leave Ashabaab weak and isolated. In fact, the opposite has happened. Sheikh Sharif’s former allies intensified their opposition against the TFG and Ashabaab became stronger. One of the first towns he lost to Ashabaab after his election was his hometown of Jawhar, which is still under the control of Ashbaab. Due to his weak personality and inexperience in government, the president does not seem to have the resolve and the backbone to stand up against the Al Shabaab onslaught.

The question then becomes, what happened to the perceived political bases and other strengths of these three men. My answer is quite simple. There is no such thing as a political base in Somalia. Militias, clan support, and perceived political base will never be a substitute for personal skills, administrative skills, dedication, and good governance.  Moreover, in war, there are winners and losers in the absence of meaningful peace agreement. That is why the most powerful man in southern Somalia today is Mukhtar Abdurahman (Godane), the leader of Ashabaab from northwestern Somalia near Hargeysa (Somaliland). Whoever wins this war either by persuasion or by force will make a difference. Any transitional leader who is weak in executing war or peace cannot survive the present atmosphere in Somalia. There is always an ill-conceived program that says transitional period is a time for peace making and reconciliation. Given the facts, this is extremely difficult, if not impossible because no Somali faction wants to negotiate with a weak name-only government. Plus, the fight of restoring the Somali state is a fight between the status quo (anarchy) and those who want to change it. The transitional period should be used for peace building, pacifying the country, restoring law and order, building governing institutions, and eventually transferring power to a consensual or elected government without any condition. Therefore, these transitional governments failed because they elected wrong leaders for wrong reasons, who in turn, applied wrong doctrine to Somali conflict by either neglecting the reconciliation aspect or the pacification aspect. The other problems, such as lack of support from the Somali public and the international community, interferences from the neighboring states, and lack of resources could have been overcome by more competent, more qualify, and more coherent purpose driven leadership.

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Mahdi Warsama is a senior student at Kent State University in Kent, Ohio USA.
He can be reached at coombeyare@yahoo.com 

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author
and do not necessarily reflect the views of  Terror Free Somalia Foundation 
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