By Mohamed Dhugad - a policy analyst and humanitarian expert focused on governance and civic issues in Somalia.
“Somalia’s executive crises reveal how political behaviour can turn institutional disagreements into battles that repeatedly weaken government stability.”Mohamed Dhugad
Somalia has spent the better part of two decades trying to rebuild a state from the recurring ruins of political collapse. We have debated constitutions, federalism, elections, clan representation, parliamentary authority and the division of powers between the Federal Government and the Federal Member States.
We have argued endlessly about institutions until the plague of dysfunction became more predictable than the seasonal Gu’ rains and far more destructive.
But we have spent significantly less time examining a simpler problem: the political behaviour of the people occupying those institutions. And nowhere has this behaviour been more costly than in the relationship between the President and the Prime Minister.
Since 2004, one of the most persistent weaknesses of Somalia’s federal governments has been this relationship. Again and again, two offices that should function as complementary parts of one executive have evolved into competing political centres.
Presidents and prime ministers have disagreed over cabinet appointments, Parliament, security, federal states and political authority. What begins as an institutional disagreement becomes personal. Parliament is drawn in.
Political camps form. Clan pressures intensify. Eventually, the Prime Minister is dismissed or forced to resign. The government loses momentum. The cycle repeats.
Against that background, something about the relationship between President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Prime Minister Hamze Abdi Barre stands out. Since Hamze became Prime Minister in June 2022, Somalia has witnessed something unusually rare: a durable and functional relationship between the two highest figures in the federal executive.
That raises an important question: what is different about Hamze?
The Replay Cycle We Choose to Repeat#
To understand the significance of Hamze’s premiership, we have to remember what came before him.
The relationship between President Abdullahi Yusuf and Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi deteriorated into a prolonged political struggle. Gedi resigned in October 2007. His successor, Nur Hassan Hussein, entered an even more consequential confrontation with Yusuf over peace negotiations and political authority.
The disagreement involved Parliament and competing interpretations of presidential and prime ministerial powers. Abdullahi Yusuf himself finally resigned in December 2008.
The lesson was already visible: when the President and Prime Minister become competing political centres, institutional disagreements rarely remain institutional. And under President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, Somalia witnessed another episode of executive political tension, culminating in the Kampala Accord.
Then the same pattern appeared under President Hassan Sheikh during his first presidency. Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdon was removed by Parliament in December 2013 following a serious dispute with the President over cabinet composition and political authority.
One year later, Prime Minister Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed suffered a remarkably similar fate. His attempt to reshuffle parts of the cabinet brought him into conflict with the President. Parliament voted him out.
The significance is not simply that two prime ministers were removed. It is that the same presidency experienced two major executive confrontations in succession. The problem could not easily be explained by one difficult personality. The institutional relationship itself was vulnerable.
Then came the Farmaajo years. Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire initially worked closely with President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo, but the relationship eventually deteriorated amid disagreements over political direction and the electoral process.
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Khaire was removed in 2020. The subsequent relationship between Farmaajo and Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble became even more dramatic.
By 2021, disagreements over elections, appointments and security had developed into an open struggle. The President announced the suspension of the Prime Minister’s powers. Roble rejected the move. Political camps formed around both men, and the crisis spilled into Mogadishu’s broader security and political environment.
This was the familiar Somali political cycle in its most dangerous form. The President and Prime Minister become competing centres of power. Disagreement becomes confrontation. Confrontation becomes parliamentary crisis. The executive is paralysed. The government loses momentum. And the country moves on to another Prime Minister.
This is not merely a story of constitutional ambiguity. It is also a story of political behaviour.
Cooperation Over Confrontation#
In May 2022, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud returned to the presidency. One month later, he nominated Hamze Abdi Barre as Prime Minister. Parliament unanimously endorsed the nomination. In August, it confirmed his cabinet.
The interesting part was not Hamze’s appointment. It was what happened afterwards.
The President and Prime Minister did not develop the familiar pattern of two men gradually building competing political camps. Instead, the relationship remained remarkably durable.
For a country accustomed to seeing prime ministers disappear after one or two years, the continuity itself became politically significant.
But durability alone is not enough.
The more important question is: why has this relationship survived where so many others failed?
To be continued in Part II: The Hamze Model.
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Mohamed Dhugad is a policy analyst and humanitarian expert focused on governance and civic issues in Somalia. He can be reached at: mdhugad@gmail.com
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The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of Dawan Africa.