Mathieu Gotteland#Somaliland sets new election date on 13 November
The country is going through multiple crisis, the least of which is not the extension of president Muse Bihi Abdi’s term by 2 years for “technical reasons”. A crackdown on the opposition followed.
#Somaliland has to navigate through troubled waters. Its relative stability, commitment to democracy and strategic position has helped it make its case for international recognition, but clanic rivalries, the end of hostilities in neighbouring #Yemen the Egyptian-Ethiopian rivalry or the rebuilding of the Somali federal state have arguably diminished any room it had for manoeuver.
Naval base diplomacy has likewise failed. Despite the #UAE getting a foothold in Berbera by modernizing the port and airport, an Emirati naval base was never established following backlash from Mogadiscio (2018).
#Ethiopia, that withdrew from the same deal by default (2022), has now signed a controversial MoU that #Somalia’s resistance deterred from following up on by recognizing #Somaliland’s independence (2024).
Meanwhile, the Ethiopian MoU has triggered the demission of the minister for Defence, the arrest of the minister for Agriculture as well as several journalists. It has also greatly strengthened resistance in #Awdal, with the #Gadabuursi lobbying Mogadiscio for support.
They follow in that the example of the #Dhulbahante, which managed to defeat #Somaliland’s army with the support of #Puntland last August, and were formally reunited as the 6th region of federal #Somalia in October (#SSC-#Khatumo).
#Djibouti, then backing #Somaliland, has since denounced the tensions caused by the MoU. The Ethiopian naval base was to be established at its very border. Good relations once enjoyed with #Kenya have been damaged by #Qatar’s mediation with #Somalia (2021). Relations with the #UAE are shifty, while the latter has until recently enjoyed excellent relations with Mogadiscio and a much stronger hold over #Puntland.
All in all, Muse Bihi Abdi leaves #Somaliland much further away from recognition that when he took office in 2017, diminished, weakened, its stability never more threatened since independence was proclaimed in 1991, and its democracy in danger. Its human rights record has recently been further tarnished by the use of the death penalty.
One way forward could be a dialogue with Mogadiscio, that seemed to have been miraculously restarted last year — two days before the Ethiopian MoU was inked. It nevertheless proved federal #Somalia was willing to go in that direction. Another clue is the lack of federal funding allocated to #SSC-#Khatumo so far. Whether memory of the #Ishaaq #genocide can be grappled with and relations normalized, within or outside of federal Somalia, is another issue entirely.