Somalis embrace new president as a sign of hope

People expect Farmajo to take the nation back to the days when it was cited as an example of democracy and good governance in Africa

Anew president took over the reigns of power in Somalia on February 8 after a resounding victory over his predecessor through an election in which votes were on sale for the highest bidder and millions of dollars changed hands in a country where more than 73 per cent of people live under $2 (Dh7.35) per day according to a World Food Programme report in June 2015.

Despite this monumental corruption, which the New York Times described as a ‘Milestone of Corruption’, Somali people have celebrated around the world as 311-member clan-picked lawmakers elected the new Somali president at an airport hanger protected by African peacekeeping forces. The new President, Mohammad Abdullahi Farmajo, who had worked as prime minister from November 2010 to June 2011, comes at a very critical time in the country’s political situation. He defeated his closest contestants, the outgoing president Hassan Shaikh Mahmoud, who was in office since 2012, and Shaikh Sharif Shaikh Ahmad, who held the office from 2009 to 2012, from a list of 24 candidates.

Since the collapse of the central government in 1991, Somalia mostly remained a lawless country where feuding clans, warlords and extremist groups carved the country into enclaves. The civil war displaced more than a million people with the Dadaab Camp in Kenya alone housing around half a million Somali refugees over the last 26 years, making it the largest refugee camp in the world. Other tens of thousands are either locally displaced in a land ravaged by draught and war-engendered famine or relocated to Europe and North America while thousands of youths risk their lives every day on the high seas in search of peace and bread. Several attempts were made in the last 26 years to bring Somalis together and form a national government, but all of them failed abysmally. The question is, therefore, why do the people think it will be different this time?

A brief glance at the country’s chequered history may provide some answers. In the decade after independence in 1960, Somalia was seen as the most democratic country in Africa. In a newly-published book, Abdi Samatar, professor, University of Minnesota, characterised Somalia’s leaders at the time as

Africa’s First Democrats, thus the name of the book. Somalia was the first country in Africa in which a sitting president was defeated in an election and he willingly and peacefully handed over power to his successor in 1967. In the following two decades, Somalia built one of the strongest armies in Africa south of the Sahara and achieved a few other milestones in economic and social development, particularly in public education and improving the country’s literacy rate. However, Somalia tumbled when it went into a war with Ethiopia over a territorial dispute. Ethiopia reversed its initial defeat by deploying Cuban forces and getting massive military support and experts from the Soviet Union. Unable to face such unholy allies, Somalia withdrew its forces, abandoning most of its military hardware to enemy hands. Some commanders of the demoralised army staged a failed coup d’état.

A long-drawn civil war

The general resentment of the government actions, the massive growth of corruption, and resulting deterioration of the economic situation forced the people to start an armed opposition. Soon the military disintegrated into tribal militias and the central government collapsed in 1991 with the president fleeing the country. The country fell into a long-drawn-out civil war between clan militias, leading to one of the greatest humanitarian crises initiating United Nations and United States intervention in Somalia, which culminated in the infamous Black

Hawk Down battle of Mogadishu between General Aideed and American Rangers that subsequently resulted in the withdrawal of American and UN peacekeeping forces.

The first regional attempt for Somali reconciliation was hosted in neighbouring Djibouti in 2000. After a marathon conference that lasted several months, Abdiqasim Salad Hassan, a former veteran politician, was selected as president. This was seen as a milestone development and Hassan received a hero’s welcome upon his return to Mogadishu. However, four years later, Hassan’s administration could barely reach parts of the capital, while clan warlords controlled the main revenue nerves of Mogadishu and the rest of the country.

In 2004, Colonel Abdillahi Yousuf Ahmad replaced Hassan in another clan-selected assembly in Kenya. Yousuf couldn’t enter the capital until African peacekeeping forces supported by the Ethiopian army pushed the forces of Islamic Courts out of Mogadishu.

When the Ethiopian army withdrew from Mogadishu after heavy losses, Shaikh Sharif Shaikh Ahmad, the former chairman of the ICU, was elected president in a reconciliatory conference held in Djibouti in 2009. But the Al Shabab movement, which by now had become affiliated with Al Qaida, rejected Shaikh Sharif’s government and waged a war against him. With the support of Amisom forces, however, Shaikh Sharif managed to drive Al Shabab from the capital and some neighbouring areas. However, Al Shabab’s terrorist attacks became more deadly and the situation was further deteriorated by a devastating famine over vast swathes of the country in 2010-2011.

During Hassan Shaikh’s tenure, Mogadishu saw some of the most daring and most devastating attacks by Al Shabab, with the country further fragmented into numerous autonomous clan fiefdoms supported by neighbouring countries.

Although Hassan Shaikh’s government was internationally recognised and Somalia was removed from the failed state index, it was plagued by political infighting and corruption, prompting Transparency International to rank Somalia among the most corrupt nations in the world.

It is against this background in addition to massive unemployment and hopelessness among the youth, with 70 per cent of the country’s population under the age of 30, that many Somali people view the new president as a symbol of hope. A hope that harkens back to an era when Somalia was cited as an example of democracy and good governance in Africa.

Bashir Goth is an African commentator on political, social and cultural issues.

The new President, Mohammad Abdullahi Farmajo, who had worked as prime minister from November 2010 to June 2011, comes at a very critical time of the country’s political situation.

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