Villa Somalia Hosts Rival Leaders Amid Dispute Over 2026 Election Model

[Deeq A.]

President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud (third from right) with members of the National Salvation Council.

Mogadishu (PP Report) — Yesterday at Villa Somalia, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud hosted his rivals, including a former president and two former prime ministers. The talks were aimed at reaching a consensus on the electoral model for the 2026 presidential elections in Somalia. President Mohamud’s rivals, the National Salvation Council, demanded the reversal of constitutional amendments. Last year, the bicameral legislature amended several articles in the Provisional Constitution of Somalia. The amended articles aim to change the political system from a prime ministerial to a presidential system. The proposed system vests more powers in the presidency. Puntland State of Somalia rejected the constitutional amendments. Jubaland State, which initially supported the proposed presidential system, joined Puntland in opposing the constitutional amendments.

The Federal Government of Somalia plans to hold one-person-one-vote elections in Somalia next year. The National Salvation Council, modelled on the 2021 armed National Salvation movement (Badbaado Qaran) that opposed the unlawful term extension expedited by the bicameral legislature for the previous government, campaigns against a change in the political system and remains unconvinced on the proposed one-person, one-vote elections, which the Federal Government of Somalia has tied to the constitutional amendments.

At issue is the representation of the secessionist constituencies of Somaliland, whose MPs and Senators are part of the power-sharing system known as 4.5. In 2023, the President of Puntland State of Somalia  Said Abdullahi Deni insisted on the participation of Somaliland as a precondition for resuming ties with the Federal Government of Somalia. The signing of the illegal maritime Memorandum of Understanding between the Somaliland administration and Ethiopia in 2024, which the Federal Government of Somalia vehemently rejected, vindicated President Deni. The Somaliland administration claimed that its Special Arrangement, agreed with the Federal Government of Somalia in 2013 and renewed and enhanced in December 2023 in Djibouti during a summit between the Federal Government of Somalia and the Somaliland administration, entitled it to lease a coastal district to Ethiopia in violation of the sovereignty of the Federal Republic of Somalia.

Added to this, the Federal Government of Somalia did not object to the pretext used by the secessionist administration of Somaliland in 2023  to indiscriminately shell Laascaanood, which former Somaliland President falsely accused of harbouring Al-Shabaab, before offering a two-state precondition to stop shelling the administrative capital of Sool. Somaliland Federal MPs and Senators voted for the constitutional amendments despite the Somaliland administration rejecting the legitimacy of the Federal Government of Somalia.

Key members of the National Salvation Council include Sharif Ahmed, a former president of Somalia (2009–2012), and Sharif Hassan, a former parliamentary speaker twice and one-term president of South West State. The two Sharifs’ political camaraderie dates back to 2006, when President Sharif was the leader of the Union of Islamic Courts, then at war with the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia before Ethiopia invaded Somalia “to protect the Federal Government of Somalia” then based in Baidoa.

Nine months remain before the term of the Federal Government of Somalia and the bicameral legislature comes to an end. If an agreement to return to indirect elections is reached by Villa Somalia and the National Salvation Council, the process for selecting MPs and Senators will take at least four months. The 2022 electoral model granted parliaments of Federal Member States the power to select MPs and Senators. MPs and Senators representing Somaliland were selected by elders in Mogadishu.

MPs and Senators who had been selected under the 2022 electoral model pledged loyalty to Villa Somalia, as has been the norm since the end of the transition in 2012. The position of the Puntland President on indirect elections, to which he devoted considerable time and resources in 2022 but lost to President Mohamud, is unclear. President Deni expressed reservations about the National Salvation Council, which he views as a Trojan horse to maintain the political power of Mogadishu elites and their associates, given that Mogadishu is their stronghold. Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, a former prime minister, and Ahmed Isse Awad, a former foreign minister of Somalia, both from Puntland constituencies and at loggerheads with the President Deni, are members of the National Salvation Council.

“President Deni proposed that the Somaliland administration should have skin in the game to maintain its representation in the federal institutions. If Somaliland rejects the sovereignty of Somalia and if the President of Somalia cannot visit parts of northern Somalia controlled by the Somaliland administration, then Somaliland must lose its representation in federal institutions. Somaliland should be a Federal Member State, not a quasi-independent state whose MPs and Senators defend secessionist agendas in Mogadishu,” said a political analyst in Mogadishu.

© Puntland Post, 2025

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