Sharmarke Loses Senatorial Bid, Sets Sight on Somalia Presidency

[Deeq A.]

Sharmarke aligns himself with a quasi-theocratic clique in Mogadishu, his former bosses.

Mogadishu (Opinion) — The former Somalia Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid A. Sharmarke raised questions about the integrity of the electoral process. In what appears to be a plan to join the Union of Presidential Candidates Sharmarke has adopted a strategy to remind people of the civil war. “Regional leaders emerged from the August agreement with no commitment to fair elections. We must take into careful account that the culture of “leader of the day take all politics” was one of the root causes of our Civil War. Taking corrective measures maybe the only good option” he tweeted last week.

Having lost his senatorial seat in Puntland Sharmarke collectively labelled Federal Member States to create the wrong impression that the incumbent administration stands to benefit the electoral model. He has the unique distinction of being appointed the Prime Minister of Somalia twice. His eleventh hour alignment with the two groups that dominated the Mogadishu politics between 2009 and 2007 reflects a commitment to turning Somalia into a quasi-theocracy.

The transfer of election preparation powers to the Federal Member States has a silver lining: it marks the end of Mogadishu as the centre of Somalia politics. It goes a long way to give the citizenry a privilege to hold the centre accountable. In a country dependent on peacekeeping forces coupled with conflicting interests of superpowers and supranational political entities, it is important to diversify political decision making at the centre. Due to state collapse and state fragility political authority in Somalia must be built from bottom up. His criticism of the Federal Member States carries undemocratic sentiments. He warns against big man politics but subtly advocates supremacy of a theocratic clique whose leadership style deepens the alliance between extremists and embezzlers.

In his PR blitzkrieg via Dalsan TV interview, Sharmarke tries to make light of the timely and successful security reforms undertaken in Puntland since 2019. Rather than giving Puntland State President Said Abdullahi Deni credit for calling out the extrajudicial status of Puntland Security Force, Sharmarke claims that he has all along favoured a federal oversight of PSF. He tried to insert himself in the broader security reform in Puntland while failing to support the accountability agenda introduced by President Deni.

PSF is a pre-federal security apparatus whose reform can only be carried out locally. The argument that Somalia requires a centralized counterterrorism force is laudable but chimeric in the absence of substantive political settlement. Puntland revolutionized the Somali politics through its advocacy for and active role in implementing a federal system derided by many for exacerbating centrifugal forces. Without Commitment to rebuilding the Somali State by neither returning to total centralization nor advocating break-up of Somalia into mini-nation states (an impossibility), Puntland State pioneers a bottom-up approach to recovering from state collapse.

By Ali M. Tallan

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