Opinion : Somalia’s Political Dilemma: A case of the governing party not winning and the opposition losing.

 Victory in politics, as in warfare, is rarely decided on the battlefield alone. The Chinese strategist Sun Tzu famously observed that a skilled general chooses battles that are already won, prevailing before the first clash begins. Power, in other words, is secured in the shadows—through calculation, timing, and the quiet shaping of outcomes long before they become visible.

It is reasonable to assume that Somalia’s governing party has spent the past several years preparing for this moment. Faced with multiple paths—some easier, others more perilous—the choice appears to have been to reshape the terrain of politics itself. Control, after all, is not only about winning elections; it is about defining the rules under which elections are fought.

Politics is ultimately about access: who gets what, when, where, and how. Politicians seek leverage, voters seek representation, and political investors seek returns. In Somalia’s context, however, these calculations unfold within a system shaped by clan affiliation and the long-standing 4.5 formula. The critical question for ordinary citizens and political stakeholders alike is simple: what new gains, positions, or guarantees emerge under the current political paradigm?

The answer, increasingly, appears to be very little.

The traditional hierarchy of Somalia’s major clans has grown blurred. Established lines of authority no longer clearly determine political outcomes, and the idea of a single “chieftain” capable of delivering collective decisions has weakened. In its place has emerged a fragmented landscape of smaller power brokers—sub-clans, factions, and localized elites—whose combined influence now outweighs that of the larger blocs.

This shift has altered the political arithmetic. Victory no longer depends on commanding the largest numbers, but on assembling just enough of the smallest ones. This is also referred to as the tyranny of small numbers. The governing party may well succeed under this new formula. Yet such a success would rest on a coalition of narrow interests, bound together less by shared vision than by short-term accommodation.

That is not the foundation of a stable government.