Somaliland has been unable to wrap up a deal on the UAE base

[Saalax]

 

13/04/2018
 

The Somaliland president has been unable to wrap up a deal on the UAE base, and members of his own government are now starting to defy him

 

Even as Musa Bihi Abdi (MBA) champions the accord - still unsigned - to construct an Emirates military base in Berbera (ION 1471), the Somaliland president is losing control of the dossier. In a sign of his weakening authority over members of his own government, Somaliland's representative in Dubai Bashe Awil Omar, who is the son-in-law of the former president Ahmed Mohamed Mahamoud (aka Silanyo), declared on 7 April without MBA's approval that UAE offensives against Houthi militia in Yemen were being conducted out of Berbera. Somaliland is thereby leaving itself open to reprisals, since the Houthis, who are supported by Iran and the Lebanese Shia militia organisation Hezbollah, have already proved they have the capacity to launch medium-range missiles, having targeted Riyadh back in November 2017.



Bashe Awil Omar is not the only one taking liberties with the official presidential line: the Somaliland foreign minister Saad Ali Shire, instructed by MBA to prepare the ground for the signing of the contract for the Emirates base (ION 1471), has been dragging his feet and failing to move the negotiations forward. In order to speed the whole process up, the Saudis have begun to mediate between Abu Dhabi and Mogadishu. On 27 March, through its ambassador to the United Nations Abukar Dahir Osman , Somalia requested the Security Council to intervene to prevent the construction of the military base in Berbera, and MBA is now fearful of an alliance between the Emirates and Somalia that will isolate him.



This series of hitches on the international stage is serving at home to strengthen the position of the leader of the Wadani opposition party Abdirahman Mohamed Abdilahi, aka Cirro, not least because the finance minister Yusuf Mohamed Abdi has come in for a lot of criticism over the amateurism of the budget that he presented to parliament on 22 March. And one final sign of the shakiness of MBA's authority is the snub inflicted on him by his interior minister Mohamed Kahin Ahmed, who this week refused to approve the appointment, as desired by MBA, of Mukhtar Mohamed Ali to the post of head of the regional administration of the interior ministry. Mohamed Kahin Ahmed claims not to have been consulted in advance about this appointment. MBA's leadership is all the more vulnerable to internal dissensions because the region is being destabilised by the Arab crisis.

 

https://www.africaintelligence.com/ion/corridors-of-power/2018/04/13/musa-bihi-abdi-isolated-over-the-emirates-military-base,108306932-art