Analysis: President Mohamud’s new rule risks becoming a rerun of his failed first term: ‘Old habits die hard’

By The Star Staff Writer

When President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud won Somalia’s presidency in 2012, some jubilant Somalis went as far as calling the change a “ Somali Spring” – a reference to the Arab Spring that kicked out Egyptian and Tunisian dictators.

The assumption was that since Mohamud was an academic and political activist who studied almost every facet of the country’s ills since 1991 — when foreign-backed warlords toppled the government and plunged the nation into lawlessness — Somalia has found its knight in shining armor.

But after more than four years in power, Mohamud left a Somalia that was more or less like the one he found: The failed State.

Now, after his reelection on May 15, wiser Somalis are asking: What will he do differently this time around? Will his new administration be a first term redux? Or Will he pull it off?

No one seems to have solid answers for those questions at the moment, but if the past is prologue, the 67-year old president is unlikely to turn Somalia into a peaceful, strong, respected and prosperous nation during his second, four-year term, friends and analysts say.

His early policy contradictions, including appointing three of his clansmen to key positions in his office and his reluctance to shake the country’s governance tree are raising broader concerns about his chance of resolving major challenges plaguing the country. His ability to meet Somalis’ high expectations and his lofty campaign promises at this juncture and his skills to navigate the region’s messy geopolitics are far from assured.

A raging drought and insecurity, a paltry budget and a public expecting more than his job description can allow are not helping his first 100 days either — to say nothing of the resurgent popularity of his predecessor that has already overshadowed his rule.

“I will be wrong to say it will be a return to the status quo ante. But there’s a high likelihood that 50 percent of President Mohamud’s second term will look like the first term,” said a friend, who met with him two times since his reelection and spoke to The Somalia Star on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

The president’s decision to distance himself from close friends and relatives, his hunger for a good legacy, his first-term experience and serving his last term are all offering him better opportunities to succeed, said the friend.

But the president, who’s scheduled to be inaugurated on Thursday, is already making the same old blunders that proved calamitous in his first term.

He is yet to define his agenda in a clear, digestible way: Does he want to bequeath the same weak Somalia that he presided over in his first term that was dependent on foreign countries and organizations for survival? Or does he want to leave behind a strong and functioning Somalia that can stand up to the meddling of foreign countries? What will he do differently this time around?

The president’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The president’s first term was marked by rampant corruption, nepotism, subservience to foreign countries, insecurity and political bickering – all of them the usual culprits that bedeviled Somalia’s post-war leaders. His seeming strengths – his knack for consensus building and using dialogue to resolve differences – are, in the eyes of many, his main shortcomings.

In his first term, President Mohamud frittered away a critical time on a row with the Kismayo chief, Ahmed Mohamed Islam “Madobe”, over the establishment of a Kenya-backed administration in the south of the country. The remaining three years were riven by disputes with his three prime ministers, two of whom were unceremoniously ousted.

“Somalia requires a robust, Machiavellian yet humble leader who has the interest of his nation and people at the forefront of all his decision-making. It wants a leader with a capital L,” said Suldan Mohamed Ibrahim, a former assistant lecturer at the University of Birmingham, UK, where he taught international political economy. “The country cannot remain trapped in this vicious cycle. Somalia yearns for a leader who will pick it up from the ground with authority. That is not to say that Somalia needs a dictator. No. It just needs a leader with vision, drive, ambition and a spine, a leader who breaks the three-decade-old mold.”

Ibrahim is a part of an increasing number of Somalis who believe that Somalia could do with a decisive, assertive and focused leader who is clear-eyed about the aspirations of the public.

“Somalia does not only need a carrot. It also needs a stick, a big one for that matter. One that is manifested in the form of a strong legal system and institutions. One authority,” Ibrahim said. “That is why areas controlled by al Shabab terrorists are more peaceful than areas under the control of the government, where authority is not centralized but is spread out among clan elders and politicians.”

Old Mohamud

There is nothing in President Mohamud’s resume that indicates he possesses the daredeviltry many Somalis are looking for in their leaders.

Friends describe the president as a man who’s aggressive when dealing with Somalis, but has a soft spot for foreigners, perhaps because of his history of working with civil society groups that are locally known as the “hands of the infidels”, or “Gacmaha gaalada” in Somali. A former teacher, the president reads a lot, especially about what is written on Somalia and on his administration, said friends.

A friend who has known him since 2003 said the president had been a poor and slow decision maker who agonized for hours and days about little details before he finally settled on a choice. He’s also averse to censure and reactive, who takes reckless decisions after the fact or after he’s criticized for his inaction, the friend said.

Since his reelection relatives and friends, however, have noticed a change: He doesn’t want to rely on other’s advice anymore. The president, whose hands-off style was in the past misused by his aides and friends, told those who met him that he wanted to “go solo” this time.

“Let me blame myself,” he told friends and relatives who tried to help him in picking a new prime minister. He said he had learned lessons from the mistakes of his first term.

“I am an old man now and I want to leave a good legacy,” he told the friend who spoke with The Star. The friend questioned the president’s capacity to turn those lessons into action. “Old habits die hard,” he said.

Words and scenes that became almost extinct during the reign of former President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed “Farmajo” have resurfaced since Mohamud’s return – an ominous sign that his new administration could be a rerun of the first term.

The president is still wide-eyed whenever he meets with foreign diplomats, greeting them with a great sense of awe. The sight of a foreign leader or a diplomat seems to wow him. He sometimes appears visibly giddy with excitement in the presence of foreign leaders — as if they are cure-alls for the country’s problems. So far, he’s met the ambassadors of the U.S., the United Arab Emirates, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UK, among others. (He met the UAE’s ambassador to Somalia three times since his reelection).

The president doesn’t seem to have benefited from his predecessor’s policy of giving Mogadishu-based diplomats a wide berth. President Farmajo met only two times with the US’s former Ambassador, Donald Yamamoto, according a source close to both of them: One time to receive his credentials and the other to discuss with him the issue of the separatists in the northwestern region of Somalia. The UK’s former ambassador, Ben Fender, was not so lucky. He had an audience with Farmajo only when he was presenting his credentials.

“We don’t know anything about what he’s up to,” Yamamoto once complained to a friend.

Unlike Mohamud, former President Farmajo was so particular about his image among the Somali public that despises any leader who genuflects to foreigners. A photo of President Mohamud bowing his head to show respect for the remains of a Kenyan soldier who was killed in Somalia has made him the butt of the joke.

The country’s ambassador to Nigeria Jamal Barrow on June 5 decried the behavior of Mogadishu-based diplomats in a post on Facebook.

“They’re are moving from one government office to another, at every level, without the knowledge of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that deals with foreign diplomats,” he wrote. “Up to now, no one has stopped them and told them to abide by the proper laws.” He urged diplomats delivering messages directly to individuals to stop that behavior and instead pass all communications through the ministry of foreign affairs.

One thing that made former Farmajo a folk hero among many Somalis is his rejection of foreign dictations. His administration was the first to ever expel a UN envoy from the country.

High expectations

Mohamud took the helm of a nation in the middle of myriad crises, most of them the same problems he failed to fix in his first term. Differences among politicians in two regional administrations, whose presidents were installed by his predecessor, are on verge of escalating into full-blown crises in the next few months.

According to UN agencies, the country’s southern regions are at risk of famine, with 7.1 million people facing crisis-level food insecurity. Around 771,000 people have abandoned their homes in search of water, food, and pasture. At least 1.5 million children are facing acute malnutrition. More than 3,170 acute watery diarrhea or cholera and 2,460 measles cases have been confirmed in the country.

In a bid to tamp down the disquiet outside the capital, the president on May 31 traveled to Baidoa for the first time since his win as a part of what his office called a “Peace Caravan” that focused on “reconciliation” as well as assessing “the humanitarian needs and the impacts of the drought.”

The president visited a camp for those displaced by the drought, where he delivered an appeal to “the international community, at all levels. to stand with Somalia this time again.”

“We need your support and we’re always grateful for the past support…we request you this time to boldly stand with Somalia and save the Somali lives,” he said in short remarks in English.

Mohamud’s visit to Baidoa, 250 kilometers west of the capital, gave him a foretaste of the insecurity challenge that would most likely eat into a big chunk of his new administration’s time and attention. He took a plane to Baidoa because al Shabab militants control the road linking Baidoa to Mogadishu.

While a lot would depend on the performance of the members of the Cabinet and his working relationship with the new prime minister, there’s already a sense of uneasiness pervading the country. The president’s close friends, a source told The Star, were alarmed by his approval of the appointment of the new intelligence chief, Mahad Salad, a man known more for his rants against the former president and political antics during the elections than for his experience in intelligence analysis.

Fahad Yasin, the former chief of the spy agency, said in an interview to be broadcast on Thursday that President Mohamud “doesn’t know Mahad Salad. If he knew who he’s, he wouldn’t have appointed him.” Yasin warned the staff of the spy agency against sharing the nation’s secrets with their new boss, Salad.

“Any officer who’s a member of the intelligence agency who shares a national secret with the (recently) appointed new director, is a person who is handing over the nation’s secret to the person from whom it was protected.”

President Mohamud hasn’t yet appointed a prime minister angering his critics who suspect that he’s angling to take advantage of the stay of outgoing Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble — an ally and clansman – to carry out policy changes that would stand him in good stead when the new head of government takes charges.

President’s past track record

The president knows that the Somali public is disinclined to cut him some slack because of his poor track record.

When he left office in 2017, his legacy was empty, possibly looted, coffers, widespread corruption and nepotism, unfinished Constitution, a divided country and strong al Shabab, whose fighters even stormed the presidential palace and killed Mohamud Hersi Abdullahi “Indha’ase”, the chief of staff of the then prime minister and Gen. Nur Shirbow, the deputy director of the national intelligence agency. Fourteen lawmakers were killed in his first term.

The UN accused his government of diverting national weapons to al Shabab and clan militias. Taxes collected from the capital’s seaport were misappropriated, with the UN saying the exercise was “fraught with fraud and corruption”. An average 80 percent of withdrawals from the Central Bank of Somalia were made for private purposes, the UN said, stressing that President Mohamud “can be held responsible for the appointment of individuals involved in past or present corruption.” The UN also accused Mohamud of hatching a plot to steal public funds after cutting secret contracts with an American law firm to earn generous percentages from Somalia’s recovered overseas assets.

The President did little to change that narrative, which is now threatening to suck the life out of his new presidency.

Apart from his fervent supporters — mostly people who were opposed to former President Farmajo’s policies — there was no large scale celebrations that welcomed his victory. In fact, Farmajo’s supporters, who appear to have already stolen Mohamud’s thunder, are not giving him respite during his honeymoon.

A campaign to build a new house for Farmajo, who has recently rented a house in the capital, has started in earnest, with initial figures showing the kitty has gotten so far more than US$1.5 million.

As a man who defeated 36 candidates with an overwhelming majority, Mohamud must have been a popular leader, but that is very skin-deep. He was in reality elected by only 214 lawmakers from both houses of parliament in a nation of more than 15 million people. The vote itself was determined by bribes and deal-making rather than by a liking for Mohamud or his manifesto.

A mistaken notion

The hard part of the nascent administration will come in the next few weeks, when certain communities start to revolt against his decision to ignore their recommendation and appoint another prime minister. The biggest rebellion will likely happen when politicians, including members of parliament, fail to find their names in the new lineup of the Cabinet.

Somalis are known to judge their presidents harshly too early. In 2017, euphoria erupted among Somalis inside and outside the country after President Farmajo beat Mohamud. The slogan “take me to Farmajo” became a household mantra.

But after Farmajo committed early political missteps, starting with the appointment of an obscure prime minister, Hassan Ali Khaire, many politicians turned their backs on him.

The mistaken notion that the president is the head of government will continue to soil President Mohamud’s reputation, as happened to his predecessors since 2004. Few Somalis seem to care about the text of the country’s faulty Constitution, which gives the president ceremonial duties, whose main tasks include signing draft laws passed by parliament and appointing a prime minister, who will be the head of government. Although he’s the commander in chief of armed forces and can declare a state of emergency and war, he must undertake almost all major decisions after receiving recommendations from relevant authorities.

“The president must fix this anomaly in the Constitution that gives him the power to hire a prime minister, but deprives him of the power to fire the man he appointed,” said Hussein Sharmarke Khayre, a part-time lecturer at the London Metropolitan University. “One would expect that the president had learned that lesson the hard way by now.”

Foreign affairs

President Mohamud’s to-do-list will definitely be dominated by domestic agendas, but his ties with the outside world — especially Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya and Djibouti — will cast a pall on his administration.

In his campaign speech, candidate Mohamud said that his foreign policy would be based on a doctrine of “Somalia not to have an outside enemy” and not to allow any group or country to “organize aggression from this country to another country, whether they’re neighbors or far away from us.”

The reality in the region, however, could force him to take sides, and in the next few months his foreign policy — “Somalia that’s at peace with itself and at peace with the world” — will be tested. Rumors about Egypt’s push to set up a military base in Somalia to get nearer to Ethiopia are already swirling. If he accepts, he would turn Somalia into a nation hostile to a country it shares 1,648 kilometer border.

His warm ties to President Ismail Omar Gelle of Djibouti could represent a headache for the leaders of Ethiopia and Eritrea who would have liked to see him ousted for his affinity with the Tigrayan rebel group that has been fighting Addis Ababa since Nov. 4, 2020.

President Gelle, a foe of former President Farmajo, opposed the tripartite agreement that brought together Mogadishu, Addis Ababa and Asmara, but isolated his country, Djibouti.

An Ethiopian source told The Star that the Ethiopian government believes that the US government is manipulating Mohamud because it “doesn’t want an Ethiopia that is at peace with Somalia, Eritrea and Sudan.”

“The US wants chaos in the region for its own selfish interests,” said the source.

Economy and messy governance system

President Mohamud has a lot to contend with in his second term, not least the nationalistic ideology sweeping across the country that is mainly driven by the youth, the bulk of the population.

To alleviate the unemployment among the youth, the president has recently launched what he called “National Job Creation Initiative” to pave “the way for a comprehensive job creation drive that will be implemented over the next 4 years through public-private partnership.”

“The President needs to get his priorities right,” said Khayre, the lecturer at the London Metropolitan University. “Job creation is good, but without fixing the nation’s security nothing else will work.”

Social services in Somalia – blistered by terrorists, wars, two famines and foreign interference since 1991 – are almost non-existent, with the majority of the services provided by either private organizations or terrorists. The government’s employees are just 5724, according to the National Civil Service Commission’s 2021 report, less than al Shabab’s estimated members of between 7000 and 10000.

The outgoing Cabinet last month passed a paltry budget of US$918.7 — higher than the 2017 budget of US$246 million, but still insufficient to help a country recovering from decades of conflict to stand on its own feet.

By comparison, Kenya’s last budget is almost US$30 billion, while Ethiopia’s is around US$12 billion.

President Mohamud promised to increase the government’s revenue until the country reaches a stage it can “depends on its own revenue” to “own our government.”

“The cost of running the government must come from a government source,” he said last month in his campaign speech in front of national lawmakers.

That promise, like many others, are likely to slam into reality in a country where the national government has no say on the revenue collected by regional administrations.

The lack of a centralized revenue collection model is being exacerbated by the fluid governance system in the country, where both federalism and centralism are practiced, even though the provisional, yet-to-approved Constitution is based on a decentralized draft.

President Mohamud, a federalist unlike his predecessor, vowed to federalize the country, but didn’t say how he will achieve the onerous task in four years’ time.

Federating Somalia would require holding referendum in the country, where militants rule most of its southern and central regions’ landmass. Moreover, an anti-federalism movement – mostly encouraged by the former government’s policies – is growing rapidly. At least four of the country’s five regional chiefs, who call themselves presidents, are unlikely to work smoothly with Mohamud, because doing so will subject their corrupt administrations to the supervision of the national government, a policy some of them have been resisting since 2012, when the current Constitution was adopted.

In his latest report, Auditor General Mohamed Mohamud Ali said the regional administrations, including the capital, didn’t explain how they spent US$78 million.

“The president is facing enormous and complex challenges nationally, regionally and internationally. But in my opinion he will, with the benefit of hindsight, do a relatively better job this time,” said Suheib Abdiweli, a London-based independent commentator. “He will implement a few reforms here and there, but that might not be enough to burnish his image or bring back the Somalia that existed before the civil war. Many, including me, would just be pleased if he put the country back on the right track toward revival.”