By Dr. Mohamud Uluso - former Minister and Governor of the Central Bank of Somalia. Currently, he is an economic and political analyst and advocate for good governance and sustainable peace in Somalia.
“Rather than reassuring the public or signaling a path toward constitutional resolution, the interview reinforced a growing perception that meaningful compromise on legitimacy, governance, and free and fair elections remains remote, thereby increasing the risk of protracted conflict.” — Dr. Mohamud Uluso.
Dawan TV secured and aired the first interview President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has granted to local media during the four-year term that has now expired.
The interview presented a rare opportunity for both the President and Dawan TV to address Somalia’s most pressing constitutional, political, security, and governance challenges.
Given the country’s deepening political crisis, many expected a serious question-and-answer session aimed at reassuring the public and signaling a path toward compromise and constitutional conflict resolution. Instead, the interview offered little indication that Somalia’s worsening political stalemate will be resolved anytime soon.
The interview took place after the expiration of both the Federal Parliament’s mandate on April 14, 2026, and President Hassan’s mandate on May 15, 2026.
Questions regarding the constitutional legitimacy of his continued tenure therefore loomed large over the interview, particularly because the decision to interview him as President after the expiration of his mandate inevitably raised questions about both legitimacy and professional propriety.
Nevertheless, President Hassan used the interview to display unwavering confidence in the legality and legitimacy of remaining in office, suggesting little urgency to pursue an electoral framework capable of restoring constitutional legitimacy and political stability.
The interviewers deserve credit for raising many of the issues dominating public concern.
These included the President’s disputed term extension, the political stalemate, the controversial electoral agenda, disputed constitutional amendments, military confrontations involving opposition leaders, deteriorating relations with Federal Member States, public land sales, security failures, frustrated international mediation efforts, President Donald Trump’s criticism of Somalia’s government, and Israel’s recognition of Somaliland, which Somalia rejects. Together, these issues reflected the constitutional, political, security, and governance challenges confronting Somalia today.
As an accountability interview, Dawan TV largely succeeded in presenting the questions citizens wanted answered. President Hassan’s responses, however, frequently fell below the standard expected of a head of state. Rather than offering direct and substantive answers, he often resorted to political gimmicks, street-level arguments, personal attacks, dismissive characterizations of opponents, and accusations that were not accompanied by supporting evidence during the interview.
At several points, his remarks suggested either a misunderstanding of constitutional governance, democratic principles, and public-office obligations, or an unwillingness to engage seriously with legitimate public concerns. Instead of projecting presidential dignity and statesmanship, the interview appeared to deepen public dissatisfaction, intensify political polarization, and raise further doubts about his leadership.
One of the most eyebrow-raising arguments advanced by the President was his continued criticism of what he calls “individualized politics” (siyaasadda qofeysan). He repeatedly suggested that political legitimacy can only be acquired through participation in political organizations, many of which are little more than personalized entities built around individual leaders and operating without an effective regulatory framework, while dismissing the legitimate political activities of individual politicians exercising their constitutional rights.
Such a position is difficult to reconcile with Somalia’s constitutional framework, which guarantees freedom of association, freedom from compulsory association, and both individual and party-based political participation.
These rights belong to citizens and do not depend on government approval or membership in any organization. Yet throughout the interview, the President suggested that political participation, demonstrations, and opposition activities derive legitimacy from executive approval rather than constitutional guarantees.
Effective dialogue among stakeholders requires a shared understanding of constitutional rights, institutional limitations, and the role of political opposition. Instead, political disagreements were frequently portrayed as challenges to presidential authority rather than legitimate disputes arising within a constitutional order, reinforcing the perception that meaningful common ground between the Federal Government and its critics remains largely absent.
The President’s defense of his continued tenure compounded these concerns.
He argued that the revised Constitution entered into force thirty days after its signature in March 2026 and therefore extended his mandate. Such an interpretation is inconsistent with basic constitutional principles. As a general principle, constitutional provisions do not retroactively alter the terms under which public officials were elected.
The provision establishing five-year presidential and parliamentary terms becomes operative only after an election is conducted under the revised constitutional framework and newly elected officials assume office upon taking the prescribed oath.
Consequently, the argument appeared constitutionally unpersuasive and politically provocative and potentially destabilizing.
The President’s response to the armed attacks against former President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and former Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire was equally troubling.
The incident resulted in deaths, injuries, displacement, destruction of military equipment, and widespread fear among Mogadishu residents.
Yet President Hassan largely minimized the significance of the incident by characterizing it as a mere skirmish and quickly shifted attention to accusations that opposition leaders were pursuing politics through force—an accusation that has been strongly disputed by opposition leaders.
Both officials were defended by their clansmen.
Missing from the President’s response was any acknowledgment of the human, political, and security consequences of the violence or the dangers of allowing political disputes to escalate into armed confrontation.
The President also portrayed the opposition as visionless and existing primarily to obstruct progress. At one point, he dismissed opposition figures as individuals who merely create noise at Jazeera Hotel.
The remark was striking because President Hassan himself spent years criticizing former President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo from the same venue alongside many of the political figures he now dismisses.
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When confronted with this contradiction, he argued that circumstances had changed because he had held meetings with both supporters and opponents. Yet he failed to address the substance of the criticism or acknowledge that those meetings have produced little meaningful progress because he has been unable or unwilling to make the compromises necessary to resolve the political impasse.
The interview also revealed contradictions regarding electoral governance. When questioned about irregularities in election administration, the President attributed problems to weaknesses within the electoral commission while simultaneously acknowledging that he had intervened in electoral processes by ordering the continuation of disputed Federal Member State elections and the postponement of federal elections.
Such admissions reinforced perceptions that political considerations continue to influence electoral administration. Additionally, his claim that the Electoral Commission, rather than the Ministry of Interior, Federal Affairs and Reconciliation, was responsible for bringing the recently sworn Mogadishu district councils into operation was factually incorrect and suggested a troubling misunderstanding of institutional responsibilities.
His assertions regarding freedom of assembly and opposition rights were similarly troubling. Although he formally acknowledged the right to protest, he simultaneously portrayed opposition demonstrations as potential threats to national security and accused opposition leaders of seeking to destabilize the country. Little evidence was offered to support these claims.
The result was a framework in which constitutional rights appeared subject to executive discretion rather than constitutional protection.
Again during the interview, President Hassan repeated his flawed belief that opposition groups must propose alternatives acceptable to his administration before their criticism can be considered valuable.
This reflects a misunderstanding of the role of opposition politics. Opposition groups are not obligated to formulate government policy. Their constitutional function includes scrutinizing, criticizing, rejecting, or supporting government proposals.
Rejection itself is a legitimate political position and an essential component of democratic accountability. This principle is particularly important regarding constitutional amendments and electoral frameworks, both of which concern the fundamental structure of the state and therefore require broad consultation, negotiation, and national consensus.
President Hassan’s comments regarding Puntland and Jubbaland further illustrated the erosion of federal relations. He categorically rejected the legitimacy of Jubbaland’s leadership despite having previously negotiated with President Ahmed Madobe as the legitimate leader of Jubbaland. At the same time, he expressed a willingness to engage in discussions with him without clarifying the legal or political basis for such engagement.
This contradictory combination of non-recognition and engagement created confusion regarding the Federal Government’s actual position and reinforced perceptions that relations with Federal Member States are guided more by political expediency than by consistent constitutional principles governing the federal system.
The interview also touched on constitutional amendments, international mediation, Al-Shabaab, Somaliland, public land sales, and governance failures. Yet on many of these issues, the President avoided addressing the central concerns raised by critics regarding legitimacy, accountability, transparency, governance performance, and the failure of his administration to achieve its stated objectives.
Particularly unconvincing was his response regarding public land sales and the displacement of vulnerable communities.
Rather than addressing concerns about accountability, revenue collection, and violations of the resettlement rights of internally displaced persons, he sought to divert attention from a controversy that had attracted national and international attention because of its humanitarian consequences and allegations of corruption, abuse of power, and constitutional and human rights violations raised by critics, as well as the destruction of private property without compensation.
Several critical questions also remained unasked. The interviewers did not inquire about the financing of the electoral process, the sources of funding for the electoral commission, or the mechanisms used to monitor those expenditures.
Nor did they explore revenues generated from public land sales, controversies surrounding the Southwest State electoral process, or the alleged use of security forces in political disputes. These issues go to the heart of governmental accountability and warranted greater scrutiny.
Ultimately, the significance of the interview lies not in any individual answer but in the broader picture it presented. Throughout the interview, President Hassan displayed little willingness to compromise on the issues fueling Somalia’s political crisis.
He dismissed objections to the constitutional legitimacy of his continued tenure, rejected the opposition’s calls for good-faith negotiations, remained committed to controversial policies, and portrayed dissent not as a legitimate exercise of constitutional rights and democratic governance, but as an obstacle to his professed political agenda, which critics argue places greater emphasis on retaining political authority than on resolving Somalia’s political crisis.
For that reason, the interview may ultimately be remembered less for the questions it was supposed to answer truthfully than for the portrait of leadership it offered during one of Somalia’s most serious constitutional and political crises.
Rather than reassuring the public or signaling a path toward constitutional resolution, it reinforced a growing perception that meaningful compromise on legitimacy, governance, and free and fair elections remains remote, thereby increasing the risk of protracted conflict. That perception may prove to be the interview’s most consequential revelation and enduring legacy.
Dr. Mohamud Uluso is a former Minister and Governor of the Central Bank of Somalia. He is currently an economic and political analyst and an advocate for good governance and sustainable peace in Somalia.
Dr. Mohamud Uluso former Minister and Governor of the Central Bank of Somalia. Currently, he is an economic and political analyst and advocate for good governance and sustainable peace in Somalia.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Dawan Africa platform.