Somalia: A New Harebrained, Power-Hungry Strategy

[Dal Aqoon]

 

The political absurdity emanating from the desolate precincts of Mogadishu these days knows no bounds. The chiefs of the world’s number one phantom “Transitional Federal Government” (TFG) have gone down the deep end in their latest boorish attempt at backroom, political deal-making.

 

Knowledgeable sources close to the two Shariif’s indicate that in the absence of viable vision on their part in moving the nation forward, advisors to (read clansmen of) Sheikh Shariif Ahmed have advised him to go for broke and make a daring gambit. They are said to have intoned in the recent premier sweepstakes that he set up the new lame duck administration solely on the basis undisguised clan reverse calculus, if he hopes to cling to the trappings of power. And so this is no run of the mill, austere way that Somali clans tended to share political power for decades—in the rare event that they agree on something of consequence.

 

The reason this one takes the cake in is that it is borne out of sheer desperation. The aforementioned advisors have sought to take a page out of President Abdullahi Yusuf’s doomed playbook. He tried and failed to divide the ranks of the ****** to secure Villa Somalia. Shariif Ahmed’s copycats are obviously not dissuaded by that glaring failure staring them in the face. So they sought to do the old warrior one better.

 

They consequently settled on a simplistic formula that in their churlish worldview must have looked to them rather elegant at the time. It was about the grand idea of dividing the ****** clan family in the way that this eclectic grouping has been rumored to have practiced for decades if not centuries against all other Somali clans and communities (though such a fable is not substantiated by the historical record). The resulting “strategy”, if that is the word, is decidedly harebrained as it is anachronistic. It’s built around the following elements:

 

1. The selection of a new premier who is ****** in name but with ****** upbringing

 

2. The marginalization of the ***** clan (particularly the ********** branch) of the ****** clan family.

 

3. The naming of a cabinet the majority of whom would happily go along with the ****** opposition to the draft constitution that recommends reconstituting Somalia as a federal republic.

 

4. The reconstitution of the old MOD (*******, ****** and ***********) coalition that held stay during the military regime headed by the late President Mohamed Siad Barre (of the ******* clan/****** clan family).

 

As mentioned before the predicates of this crude strategy misses the forest for the trees. For one important thing the folks that devised it lack the type of power and secure territorial base from which to launch such an ambitious and far reaching program. Not surprisingly their efforts in this regard have virtually no chance of having the desired effect.

 

The group’s deliberate alienation of the two supper states in the north in one fell swoop also does not bode well for Sheikh Shariif Ahmed’s geopolitical minded kitchen cabinet! The Galmudug general who, by way of endorsing this subterfuge, announced the budding alignment between his fiefdom and the SSC has added fuel to the fire that the amateurish Shariif policy seems dead set at igniting, with reckless abandon.

 

By Ali A. Fatah

Email: dhalool@gmail.com

[Dal Aqoon]

The new prime minister is a flip-flopper when he said, "i don't believe in 4.5," he changed that later after he's been scolded by President Tuke.