Sharmarke Bridges Rift Between Villa Somalia and Council of Salvation

[Deeq A.]

Omar A. A. Sharmarke emphasises the need to put Somalia’s national interest first in all talks aimed at reaching consensus on key constitutional and electoral questions.

Mogadishu (PP Commentary) — Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, who was appointed the  Prime Minister of Somalia twice, in 2009 and 2015, this week managed to put to use his statesmanlike skills by playing a key role in bridging the gap between the Federal Government of Somalia and the Council of Salvation. As a co-founder of the Council, he attended all meetings with the President of the Federal Republic of Somalia Dr Hassan Sheikh Mohamud to break the deadlock on the electoral model for the 2026 elections. The middle path Sharmarke and his colleagues have proposed is based on respecting the role of the bicameral legislature while taking into account its vulnerability to capture by the executive branch.

“We understand the constitutional amendments risked concentrating power in one person. We have agreed to change that element. In 2002 the MPs and Senators were selected [for the 2022 presidential election) by Federal Member States,” said Sharmarke, highlighting that the selection process determines the quality of the bicameral legislature in Mogadishu.

Mohamed Mursal, MP, former Parliamentary Speaker and co-founder of the Council of Salvation, briefs the media on the agreement reached with the Federal Government of Somalia regarding constitutional and electoral issues.

That Villa Somalia has been persuaded to jettison the presidential system which, in Somali political history, is predisposed to authoritarianism, is remarkable progress, and Sharmarke, Dahir Gelle, Sharif Hassan and Mohamed Mursal have brought it into fruition. The Salvation Council members  agreed to the registration process of voters in Mogadishu as a sound basis for one person, one vote elections in the future, in addition to providing a basis for local elections to be held in the capital and other Federal Member States that will follow in the footsteps of the Puntland State of Somalia, which held two-part local elections, first as pilot elections in three districts in 2021, and then in the rest of Puntland districts in 2023.

While the common understanding reached by Villa Somalia and key members of the Council of Salvation synthesises complementary aspects of two rival groups, the federalism debate has taken a back seat. Puntland, the founding Federal Member State and ardent advocate of federalism in Somalia, has been caught in the gap between its federalism rhetoric and its locally centralising ethos. 

The federal system in Somalia has come of age given the unprecedented capability of the Federal Government of Somalia to raise the highest tax revenue ever recorded in Somalia. With development aid to Somalia from donors substantially slashed, Mogadishu will soon pride itself on subsidising several Somali regions. That status would give Mogadishu and its political elites undue sway over the next stage of Somalia’s state-building, twenty years after the country adopted federalism. 

© Puntland Post, 2025

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