Date: Sun, 7 Sep 2014 23:52:49 +0200
>From a failed elite to a farce in Somalia
What has the current regime in Somalia achieved in the two years of its
existence?
Last updated: 07 Sep 2014 13:33
<http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/profile/abdi-ismail-samatar.html>
Abdi Ismail Samatar
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Inside Story - Can Somalia disarm its militias?
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Two years ago Somalia's current members of parliament and the president were
nominated through a corrupt process. Somalis willingly ignored the scandal
ridden affair and accepted the emerging dispensation hoping that a decent
leader would emerge who would have the wisdom and courage to lead the nation
out of the failures of the previous twenty-five years.
Somalis were exuberant when it became apparent that the president was new to
politics and was not tainted by the civil war. The president and his team
faced daunting challenges such as re-establishing state institutions from
scratch as a result of the endless years of civil war, hostile external
interventions, and little revenue sources of its own. But the new regime had
one vital asset at its disposal: the goodwill of the Somali people who were
impatient for progress, and intolerant towards another failed leadership.
This essay has two objectives. It evaluates the regime's political
performance and its ability to sustain public support over the last two
years; and postulates what can be expected during the regime's remaining two
years.
Wasting goodwill
The new president proclaimed
<https://www.iom.int/files/live/sites/iom/files/About-IOM/governing-bodies/e
n/council/101/H-E-Hassan-Sh-Mohamud-President-of-the-Somali-Republic.pdf>
six pillars as the political anchors of his team's national agenda, although
he or his inner circle never elucidated the details of the pillars or the
regime's plan for translating them into functioning systems. In the absence
of a clear political strategy and given the constitutionally enunciated
division of responsibilities between the president and the prime minister
(PM), the public assumed that the first real signal of the new regime's
seriousness would be revealed by the quality of the appointed premier.
At the end of the required 30 days nomination period the president's
pronouncement of his candidate deflated the hopes of most Somalis, as they
saw the new PM as a decent person but one who lacked the perspicacity and
the courage to clean up the political rubbish that had accumulated over the
decades.
Inside Story - Can Somalia disarm its militias?
For some people it was difficult to comprehend the rationale behind the
president's choice, but the majority of the public recognised that he wanted
a pliable man that would allow him to usurp the duties of the PM. For nearly
18 months the public watched as the PM and his cabinet twiddled while the
president dominated the political agenda. Meanwhile, the president and his
team surrealistically were mesmerised by their rhetoric and imagined that
the country was marching towards peace and reconstruction - but the regime
accomplished little of consequence. As a result, public sentiment began to
wane with every passing day, but the president and his team kept up the
political charade until their ineptitude exposed the rudderless morass they
were in.
Rather than honourably admitting his political failures, the president
<http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-02/somali-prime-minister-loses-confid
ence-vote-amid-cabinet-dispute.html> scapegoated the PM for underperformance
and concocted a scheme with his allies in parliament to remove the PM. To
his credit, the PM fought back for the first time during his premiership. He
claimed that he had fulfilled everything that was asked of him by the
president and had upheld all their private agreements. After a bit of a
political drama, the president managed to get the parliament on his side,
and the parliament voted the PM out of office.
The newly appointed premier chose a cabinet several times larger than the
previous one. Such a bloated cabinet signalled that the president's team
prioritised their self-serving political agenda of rewarding their clients
rather than any endeavour to rescue a nation gasping for survival. Eight
months have lapsed since the formation of the new government, and the
available evidence shows that overall conditions have not improved.
Three things exemplify the regime's frightening incompetence and the
politics of " <http://www.istorie.ugal.ro/anale/2/204%20GHITA.pdf> fortuna".
First, repeated al-Shabab attacks on the parliament house and the presidency
patently show a regime that is incapable of protecting the vital organs of
the state. Such security breaches, and the regularity with which MPs and
prominent personalities have been murdered in Mogadishu, are indicative of
the rot at the heart of the state.
Second, among the chief responsibilities of the regime is to guide the
country towards a constitutional plebiscite which would usher a new
governance order. Little progress has been made advancing this
constitutional process, partly because much of the country is not in the
hands of the government. However, even in areas where it has some degree of
control, as in the capital, no initiative has been made to involve the
population through civic education. Consequently, regional warlords and
potentates have opportunistically driven the reorganisation of the country.
The most recent conflict between Puntland and the national government over
the attempt to create a new region in central Somalia presages the political
catastrophe that is looming in the absence of enlightened and able
leadership.
Third, central to the corrupt process which produced the current regime was
the acceptance of tribal identity as the principle factor of political
representation in parliament. The hope was that merit and competency would
become the criteria used to select professional employees of government.
Unfortunately, tribal identity remains the main yardstick for making public
service appointments. Such an approach has become an insidious barrier to
institution-building. The top leaders of the regime are deeply implicated as
they assemble relatives and friends in their offices. The most heartbreaking
sign of such political venality was the appointment of a pleasant but
incapable person as Somalia's most strategic diplomat in Washington DC.
Treacherous road ahead
Somalia was supposed to have a permanent rather than a transitional
government as a result of the parliamentary and presidential selection
process which took place in 2012. Not surprisingly, the new order had two
major liabilities: a) it was financially bankrupt and virtually depended on
the disingenuous international community; and b) it inherited little
institutional capacity.
The only asset it had was the goodwill of Somalis. Nurturing public support
and using it as a shield to make difficult but necessary decisions would
have made confronting the capacity and finance problems more feasible.
Unfortunately, the regime squandered this precious resource because it chose
to indulge in corrupt politics.
Consequently, it has become exceptionally vulnerable to the manipulations of
devious international actors and local opportunists who are invested in a
fragmented Somalia. Such a trajectory can only deepen the humiliation of
Somalis who were once the proudest Africans and only a divine miracle can
transform the regime.
Abdi Ismail SamatarAbdi Ismail Samatar is Professor of Geography at the
University of Minnesota, a research fellow at the University of Pretoria,
and member of African Academy of Sciences.
http://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/images/2014/9/2/201492114625245734_20.jpg
The Somali regime has failed to stop al-Shabab attacks on state
institutions, writes Samatar [EPA]
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