Domestic Politics

Somalia had experienced a troubled political history since the emergence in the early 2000s of new forms of Somali central governments. The current governance structure was based around a process whereby a technical selection committee had screened candidates nominated by clan leaders using the so-called 4,5 formula; this gave each large clan family (Dir, Hawiye, Darod, Digil-Mirifle) a 2/9 share of the representatives, while minority clans together got a 1/9 share, and had led to the formation of a parliament in 2012. This parliament had subsequently elected a president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, from the Hawiye/Abgal/Wa’eysle clan lineage, who had a solid background in the aid and research sectors of Mogadishu. Under this system, the president appoints a prime minister, who in turn forms a cabinet, which must then be approved by the parliament.

President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud had been relatively successful in addressing some of the problems of the previous administration by, for example, improving the salary system for civil servants, and enabling the army and the police to be paid more regularly. However, the president also frequently changed prime ministers: 2014 saw the removal of his second prime minister, Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed (Darod/Marehan, Ugas Shermarke) in early December, after Mohamud initiated a motion of no-confidence against him in parliament. Abdiweli’s removal was partly a result of his challenging the president by attempting to reshuffle his cabinet. The prime minister attempted to weaken one of the president’s most loyal allies, Farah Sheikh Abduqadir (Reer Aw Hassan, Sheikal, Hawiye), by demoting him to minister of husbandry and livestock, and he also changed other post-holders. The reshuffle highlighted tensions that had begun when the prime minister fired the head of security, Abdullahi Mohamed Ali ‘Sanbalolshe’ (Hawiye, hawadle), a move that the president felt stepped on his prerogatives.

An underlying tension contributing to the personnel changes was the major issue surrounding federalism and the existence of regional states. After new regional states were declared, the borders with older states had to be demarcated. Abdiweli’s approval of Puntland’s claim to Northern Mudug created animosities in Mogadishu, alienating the president’s clan allies in central Somalia. However, the president’s appointment of Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke as new prime minister on 17 December was still in a sense considered ‘Puntland-friendly’. The new prime minister, who had served as prime minister once before in 2009–10, hailed from the Puntland region and was the son of Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, who had served as Somalia’s second president in the 1960s. Sharmarke began to assemble a cabinet that included many of the ministers who had been removed, but faced opposition in parliament. The vote approving the suggested new cabinet list did not take place till the end of the year, however, so the first test of strength for the new prime minister was left till January 2015. The cabinet was likely to again be dominated by personalities from the Somali diaspora, like Sharmarke himself, with his Canadian-Somali background.

Somalia consisted of three major regional states that in theory accepted the central government in Mogadishu. Juba State was controlled by its president, Ahmed Mohamed Islam (Darod/Ogadeen, Mohamed Subeir), a former al-Shabaab leader who very often acted, non-violently, in opposition to President Mohamud. Then there was the so-called Southwestern State, led by its president, Sharif Hassan Sheikh Adan (Digil/Mireifel, Ranhanwhein, Siyed), who had been the speaker in the transitional parliament and was a close ally of Mohamud. Adan had issues with Ahmed Mohamed Islam over the demarcation of the borders between the two regional states, but this appeared to have been solved when a Memorandum of Understanding between the two was signed in Kismaayo on 30 December. The semi-autonomous state of Puntland was led by Somalia’s former prime minister, Abdiweli Muhamed Ali Gaas (Darood/Harti, Omar Mahmoud), who had taken the post upon winning a tightly-contested election in the clan-selected Puntland parliament on 8 January, defeating Puntland’s incumbent president, Abdirahman Mohamed Farole.

In the central areas, attempts were also made to establish wider regional states, but local administrations (as in the cases of Galmudug State, Himaan and Heeb State and Hiraan) prevailed, accepting in theory the authority of the central state, but not conforming to the constitutional requirements for a regional state. The autonomies enjoyed by the regional states and the other local entities were widespread, and it could be argued that, outside Mogadishu, regional leaders were the de facto leaders. However, the tension around the federal issue in Somalia remained; there was no precise description of the federal system in the constitution, and these tensions were expected to hamper the democratic elections scheduled for 2016.

Somaliland, an entity based around the borders of the former British colony of Somaliland in north-west Somalia, had its relatively independent political dynamics and further consolidated its democratic system based around a three-party system, in which the parties were nominated through local elections. During 2014, Somaliland was faced by three major political crises. The first was a showdown over the leadership of the ruling Kulmiye party, led by the veteran President Ahmed Mohamed Muhamoud ‘Silanyo’ (Isaq, Haber Jalo), born in 1936 and a pre-civil-war minister in Siad Barre’s Somali government. As Silanyo was growing older, two other party veterans, Muse Bihi Abdi (Isaq, Habar Awal, Saad Mussa) and Abdelazzis Samale (Isaq, Habar Awal, Saad Mussa), attempted to situate themselves to take over the party and possibly to stand in the 2015 presidential election. Samale was closer to Silanyo, but was in the end defeated by Bihi, and was demoted from the position of minister of finance, leaving the position open to Somaliland’s (and Somalia’s) first female minister of finance, Zamzam Abdi Adan. Samale was not removed from the cabinet, but took the education portfolio. Musa Bihi agreed not to challenge Silanyo in the 2015 presidential race. Kulmiye remained united ahead of the elections, and Musa Bihi as party chairman seemed to be the first in line for succession to the leadership, although Silanyo confirmed his intention to stand in the election and remain as president for five more years.

Kulmiye attempted to remove the leader of the opposition Wadani party (one of the two permitted opposition parties in Somaliland), Abdirahman Mohammed Abdullahi ‘Irro’ (Haber Younis, Isaq), speaker of the lower house of parliament, who faced impeachment after he allegedly acted unconstitutionally over procedures. However, the attempt ended in failure, and Irro remained the speaker after mediation by the elders in the upper house led by Saleban Mohamoud Aden and Haji Abdi Waraabe. Irro was re-instated, although he had publicly to accept some of the blame for the crisis. The last major challenge facing Somaliland was the rebellion of a Gadabursi tribal leader, Suldan Abubakar Cilmi Wabar (Dir, Gadabursi, Jibril Yunis), who declared that the Gadabursi region of Awdal was, from 5 December, no longer part of Somaliland. The Gadabursi had normally remained loyal to Somaliland, but a small group initiated low-level attacks against Somaliland forces. The group was still small, and the majority of the Gadabursi remained loyal to Somaliland.

In the border areas between Puntland and Somaliland, i.e. the provinces of Sool, Sanaag and Cayn, local groups continued to oppose Somaliland, and to a lesser extent Puntland. Some of the resistance was organised around the so-called Kathumo State, established in 2012. However, defections to Puntland and Somaliland military victories put Kathumo State on the defensive. Further north, Warsangeli sub-clans waged a small-scale insurgency against the Puntland authorities. The Galgalla insurgency was influenced by militias loyal to al-Shabaab, under the leadership of Yasin Osman Khalid (Kilwa, Darod, Warsangeli, Dubayas). Al-Shabaab intensified hostilities in these areas, and attacked a Puntland police station in Bosasso on 13 January. Al-Shabaab were able to recruit amongst other local clans, but were not in a position to challenge Puntland for territorial control. They were also weakened symbolically by the defection of Said Atom, a veteran commander in the area.

Further south, al-Shabaab faced a situation where they were losing ground, and where us drone strikes were having an impact on their leadership. They were also facing a cleavage in the wider global jihadi movement (between al-Qaida and the so-called Islamic State [is]) and rumours of clan tensions. Al-Shabaab dominance was now restricted to the middle Juba province and parts of Mudug, where cities such as Jilib were under their control. Al-Shabaab was also able to control villages in Bay-Bakool and Hiraan in a semi-permanent form, as long as the au forces and their Somali allies did not send out determined patrols. In Middle and Lower Benadir, al-Shabaab were still able to wage a guerilla war but in Mogadishu they were less able to carry out guerilla actions, although their terrorist attacks continued.

The increasing number of battlefield withdrawals was affecting al-Shabaab’s reputation, as did a series of us drone attacks. In January, one such attack killed al-Shabaab commander Sahal Iskudhuq, but the biggest us victory was the killing of the important al-Shabaab leader Ahmed ‘Godane’ (Isaq (Diir), Arab) on 1 September. Al-Shabaab managed to minimise the damage, however, as he had left a political will in which he appointed his relative Ahmed Diryeh ‘Abu Ubaidah’, from the Diir clan, as his successor. Diryeh was related to Godane’s mother’s family and was loosely connected to him clan-wise.

Diryeh’s appointment was contested by veteran al-Shabaab commander Mahad Mohamed Ali ‘Karate’ (Ayr, Haber Gedir, Hawiye) and a group around him. They resisted what was perceived as the northern dominance of al-Shabaab and inclined somewhat to is, but intensive negotiations eventually eased the tensions. Al-Shabaab was in general on the decline, but was still formidable. It was not likely that it would be dislodged from the Somali countryside, although the provinces it controlled were under threat. Security forces were inadequate to keep villages permanently free of al-Shabaab’s presence; the Somali army was too clan-based and ill organised, and the au forces too few. It therefore appeared that al-Shabaab would be able to survive in the countryside for years to come. They were also seemingly able to expand regionally, and there were reports of al-Shabaab-affiliated activities in both Burundi and Tanzania, although it was hard to say how close groups that initiated such actions really were to the al-Shabaab leadership. Al-Shabaab activities in Kenya were also on the rise, with two massive attacks close to Mandera, and a major possible al-Shabaab attack in Mpeketoni (near Lamu).

There were several other parallel conflicts in southern Somalia. In Lower Benadir, the clan composition of the Somali army, which was in general recruited from the Ayr clan or the Haber Gedir of the Hawiye, had created specific tensions. In the 1990s, these clans occupied the area and local groups, especially from the Biyemal clan, were poorly treated and abused as slaves. There were strong indications that this practice was continuing, and several Biyemal militias organised themselves in order to attack the government, a conflict that al-Shabaab were potentially able to turn to their advantage. In Hiraan, there were smaller conflicts, and in Galmudug, local Ahlu Sunna Wal Jamaa militias also fought the government.

Foreign Affairs

The security of Southern Somalia and the containment of al-Shabaab continued to depend on the forces of the au Mission in Somalia (amisom), a military force initially created in 2007, but drastically expanded when Kenya intervened in Somalia in 2011 and was included into amisom in 2012, as was the case with Ethiopia which re-engaged in 2012. Djiboutian and Sierra Leonean contingents were added to the Ugandan, Burundian, Kenyan and Ethiopian forces (plus Nigerian and Ghanaian police), making a total of 22,126 men and women, of which some 550 were police and the rest soldiers. In late 2014, the Sierra Leonean contingent was withdrawn when a routine replacement was considered inappropriate due to the Ebola outbreak in that country.

Several of the suppliers of troops to amisom had their own strategic allies inside Somalia. Kenya, which hosted some 425,000 Somali refugees and had signed agreements with the Somali government for their return, had its closest allies in the south-western Juba State, and Kenyan forces remained in Kismayo despite earlier promises that they would withdraw from the city. Ethiopia’s influence in Juba State was growing, however, and was also clear both in Somaliland, which was allowed to train its officers at the Ethiopian Harrar military academy, and amongst the Marehan militias in upper Juba. Djibouti and its forces in the Hiraan valley were logistically dependent on Ethiopian forces, and Djibouti’s role in Somalia had to be seen in the light of Djibouti’s increasing closeness to Ethiopia. Ethiopia and Kenya, despite some serious differences, were generally able to cooperate quite regularly on the basis of their 1963–64 pact, Africa’s oldest military pact, whose exact wording remained secret. Regional struggles between the various actors for power and regional leadership were quite apparent. This was reflected, for example, when Uganda, the largest supplier of troops, manoeuvred for the leadership of the amisom forces, but Uganda had no strong local Somali allies.

During the year, in strong contrast to earlier periods, Mogadishu saw visits by many foreign ministers and high-level un and World Bank leaders. Somalia was seen as a project for Turkey’s “new ottoman” policies; Turkey was active in Mogadishu and had taken the initiative in supporting Somaliland-Somalia negotiations, which had begun in Istanbul in 2013, although they had broken down on several occasions as Turkey was regarded by the Somalilanders as being somewhat pro-Mogadishu. Turkey was symbolically important as one of the first countries to re-open an embassy in Mogadishu and President Recep Erdoğan, who in 2011 had been one of the first heads of state to visit Somalia, planned another visit for January 2015.

Qatar also opened an embassy. It had several close allies in the Somali cabinet and occasionally intervened to provide political support on the Somali domestic political scene, as well as being very active in the charity sector. Yemen was another important player, and Yemen’s private arms markets were the major suppliers of small arms. Yemen was a major recipient of Somali economic refugees trying to make their way to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states; 236,000 Somali refugees were registered in Yemen, although the popularity of Yemen as a destination was dwindling. Yemen was also fishing extensively in Somali waters, and had agreements regulating fishing activities with Puntland and Somaliland.

Somalia saw the installation of an American military mission; the usa also designated an ambassador to Somalia, Katherine S. Dhanani, operating out of Nairobi. The year also saw the notable opening of a Chinese embassy in Mogadishu on 13 October. By year’s end, 11 countries had embassies in Mogadishu: China, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Iran, Italy, Qatar, Sudan, Turkey, Uganda, the uk and Yemen.

Outsiders such as the Interpeace group also played a significant role in Somali and Somaliland politics. The Somalian president had been in close partnership with Interpeace before assuming the presidency and was close to several of the researchers affiliated with them. Indeed, the foreign ngo sector remained a potent route to power in Somalia.

Socioeconomic Developments

The Somali economy remained hard to assess and estimates of the gnp and other measures of growth were difficult because of the lack of reliable statistics. The imf nevertheless produced some estimates, calculating the nominal gdp at $ 9,857 m in 2014, with a growth rate of 6%. Somalia’s 10.5 m inhabitants were still in a fragile situation, dependent on foreign support and remittances sent home from the large Somali diaspora. The total value of remittances, estimated at about $ 1.3 b in 2012, accounted for an equivalent of about 35% of Somalia’s total gdp and thus was of major importance for the Somali economy. Somali workers in the diaspora were often in the West and in the Gulf states. The flow of remittances came under threat of being severely curtailed when Western banks came under political pressure to close their cooperation with Somali remittance companies during 2014.

The expected drop in remittances was also expected to have an influence on budget calculations, but this had not yet been incorporated into the calculations for the new budgets of the central state and the various regional entities. The Somali national budget for 2015 foresaw expenditure of $ 216 m, a slight drop compared with the $ 218 m budgeted in 2014. The Somaliland government had a larger budget than the central Somali government, and approved a $ 251 m budget for 2015, the largest in Somaliland’s history, perhaps influenced by the extra cost of the upcoming 2015 election. The central Somaliland government would have some $ 180 m to spend. Both Somali states and their regional administrations had major problems with collecting taxes, and were in reality dependent on fees from markets, ports and airports, which were easy to collect, although corruption was rampant everywhere.

The Somali private sector was dominated by the livestock industry; it provided income for an estimated 60% of the population, contributing 40% of the total gnp and 50% of export earnings. Livestock exports went through the ports of Berbera and Bosasso in the north, mostly to the Gulf states. In the south, the main livestock outlet was the border town of Garissa (Kenya). The main export was live animals, which made the sector less efficient as more storage space was needed and the production chain ended outside Somalia. Exports had long been relatively insecure because the main importer, Saudi Arabia, banned or restricted imports on the grounds of inadequate disease controls on the Somali side. Somalia also exported agricultural products, mainly maize and bananas from the Shabelle and Juba valleys.

The Somali fishing industry had significant potential, as the Somalia coastline is the longest in East Africa. Marine resources had been mainly exploited by foreign fishermen, as Somalia had in the past failed to declare a 200 nm economic zone, originally declaring these areas as territorial waters but failing to have the claim accepted. In a proclamation dated 30 June, the economic zone of Somalia was properly declared, and data were submitted to the un Convention on the Law of the Sea. In Puntland, probably Somalia’s most important fishing region, biometric registration took place through 2014, enabling the Puntlanders to better control their fishing industry. However, Somalia and its regional states will have no viable navy in the near future, thus severely restricting any efforts to stop illegal fishing.

Another potentially profitable sector, oil and gas, suffered from similar problems to those of the fishing industry. Several companies had invested and announced exploratory drilling in the border areas of Puntland and Somaliland, the most prominent perhaps being dno, a Norwegian company, and the Somali government was in contact with several larger oil companies. However, the authorities in Puntland, Somaliland and Mogadishu were all issuing their own licences, and disputes over which entity had a legitimate claim led to local conflicts, causing several of the oil investors in turn to freeze their operations through 2013 and 2014. In the far south, Kenya and Somalia had a contested border, making oil and gas exploration more difficult. The issue was brought to the International Court of Justice by Somalia. In Somaliland, tgs Nopec had carried out seismic surveys as early as 2009 and, in the south, Soma Oil & Gas conducted extensive seismic surveys in exchange for Production Sharing Agreements for an area of up to 60,000 sq km, finishing in December 2014. The seismic surveys were promising, but foreign investors were reluctant to invest, perhaps in view of the problems described above. Another cause of this reluctance had clearly been the notorious problem of Somali piracy activities, which had caught global attention for years, but piracy had already been declining drastically since 2012.

The Somali telecommunications sector, consisting of around 20 major companies, continued to do well, and was investing outside Somalia. The sector had benefitted from the lack of regulation, but the lack of standardisation between the various telecom providers hurt consumers. New legislation was passed to start the standardisation process, and several companies coordinated their activities on a voluntary basis; three signed an agreement on 22 July. The Somali financial sector also suffered from lack of regulation, as well as from the threatened ban on remittances from the West, since the largest financial companies, such as Dahabshil, were dependent on the handling of remittances. Other, more regular finance institutions opened throughout 2014, including the International Bank of Somalia and Premier Bank. Another small milestone was the opening of the first atm in Mogadishu, owned by Salaam Somali Bank. The nucleus of a Somalia Stock Exchange was also starting to emerge, opening offices in Mogadishu and Kismayo. The institution, initially tied to the Kenyan stock exchange, was scheduled to open fully in 2015.

International financial institutions also returned to the city during the year. The World Bank set up a Multi-Partner Fund for Somalia, a facility to finance items of emergency expenditure in Somalia’s budget. Somalia remained heavily dependent on foreign aid. The 2015 Humanitarian Response Plan consisted of requests for $ 863 m to meet humanitarian needs. Somalia still had 1.1 m idps, and 731,000 Somalis were defined by the un as in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, although the rainfall had generally been quite good. A continuing major humanitarian problem was the lack of access to the areas controlled by al-Shabaab. Somalia’s high illiteracy rate, with only 37.8% of adult Somalis able to read, also hampered productive investment and the development of democratic institutions.