Somali politics: a direct ballot on paper and clan elders in practice

How clan elders fill the House of the People

Britannica sets out the procedure used in 2016. There were 275 electoral colleges, each made up of 51 delegates chosen by the elders of Somalia's clans, and each college voted for one of the 275 members of the House of the People. The 54 members of the Upper House were selected by the assemblies of the federal member states. Most members had been sworn in by the end of 2016, and on 8 February 2017 the two houses elected a president.

The seats are shared out by clan. The BTI 2026 country report calls the arrangement a form of consociationalism known as the "4.5 formula", in which members of parliament are elected within their own clans and sub-clans, and finds that party affiliation counts for little. Parties have been able to register since 2016, but the report describes them as personality driven alliances among a small circle of political elites.

A clan, in Britannica's account, is a group that traces its ancestry back to a single father. Clans divide into subclans and combine into clan families. Britannica names the Daarood, the Hawiye and the Isaaq among them, and in the farming country between the two rivers the Rahanwayn and the Digil, known together as the Sab. A poll of 1,633 people in the Benadir region around Mogadishu, published by a local think tank in 2014 and cited by BTI, found 93% strongly in favour of democratic elections and 72% dissatisfied with clan-based representation and the 4.5 system.

Britannica records that the selection of 2016 and 2017, from the elders' choice of delegates to the vote for president, was clouded by allegations of intimidation, violence and corruption, and that some analysts put the bribes at about $20 million. BTI finds that presidential payments to members for their votes have worn away the legislature's independence.

The model is older than the constitution. A peace conference in Djibouti in 2000 set up a Transitional National Assembly of representatives of the many clans, and talks in Kenya produced a transitional parliament in 2004. In August 2012 the candidates for the new House of the People were chosen by traditional elders and approved by a selection committee, and its members elected a president on 10 September 2012. The Congressional Research Service counts clan-based indirect elections from 2000 onward, each of which has ended in a transfer of the presidency. The cycle after 2016 ran late. In April 2021, with both mandates expired, the House of the People voted a two-year extension and called for direct elections within that time; armed clashes followed in Mogadishu, and the house rescinded the law on 1 May. Most members of the new house were inaugurated on 14 April 2022, and 39 candidates stood when the two houses elected a president on 15 May 2022.

How the republic voted before the army took power

The southern trust territory held its first general election in 1956, and the Somali Youth League won it. British Somaliland became independent on 26 June 1960 and joined the south on 1 July as the Somali Republic. A constitution was ratified by referendum on 20 July 1961; most people did not take part, and the text had little support in the former British north.

The last direct national election was held in March 1969. Britannica counts more than 1,000 candidates from 64 parties, most of them clan-based, contesting the 123 seats of the National Assembly, after which every deputy but one joined the Somali Youth League. The president, Abdirashid Ali Shermarke, was assassinated on 15 October 1969, and on 21 October the army staged a coup.

Under Mohamed Siad Barre, the army commander who became president of a Supreme Revolutionary Council, clan loyalties were officially outlawed and clan-inspired behaviour became a criminal offence. Elders were renamed "peace-seekers" and placed on regional committees under a state official. Clan-based guerrilla movements multiplied after 1988, and in January 1991 an uprising led by the Hawiye-based United Somali Congress overthrew Siad Barre. The federal parliaments chosen since 2000 have all used the clan as their unit. Somalia: history follows the collapse of the state and the transitional governments that came after it.

What the provisional constitution promises and what happened

A National Constituent Assembly adopted the Provisional Constitution in Mogadishu on 1 August 2012, from a text drafted by a committee chaired by the lawyer Mohamed Osman Jawari. Article 1 declares a federal, sovereign and democratic republic founded on inclusive representation, a multiparty system and social justice. Article 2 makes Islam the religion of the state and forbids any law that does not comply with the general principles of Shari'ah, and Article 4 makes the constitution the supreme law "after the Shari'ah". Article 5 names Somali, in its Maay and Maxaa-tiri forms, as the official language and Arabic as the second.

Several articles prescribe procedures that the record shows working another way.

The English text of Article 64 published by the Constitute Project gives the house 225 ordinary members, where Britannica, Wikipedia and the electoral colleges of 2016 all count 275 seats. Article 9 leaves the status of the capital, Mogadishu, to a special law, and Article 138 postponed every provision on the Upper House until all the member states had been formed. The CRS describes the text as having enshrined federalism while being vague on how it should work.

The review stalled for nearly ten years and moved in 2024, BTI records. Both houses approved amendments to four of the fourteen chapters on 30 March 2024. They let the president appoint and dismiss the prime minister, lengthen the presidential mandate from four years to five, provide for a president elected directly by the population and allow at most three parties to contest elections. Opposition groups called the process rushed and short of consultation, and its passage was accompanied by allegations of vote-buying. In the CRS's account, parliament's amendment extended its own term and the president's to 2027, a step the CRS calls controversial.

How the two houses choose and check the president

Article 89 makes the president the choice of both houses sitting together. A candidate needs the backing of 20 members of the House of the People or of one member state, and winning in either of the first two rounds takes two-thirds of the combined membership. The second round is limited to the four leading candidates and the third to the top two, where the larger number of votes decides. The president must be a Somali citizen and a Muslim of at least 40, and a former president becomes a life member of the House of the People unless removed from office.

Under Article 90 the president commands the armed forces, appoints the prime minister and may dissolve the government if it fails to win a vote of confidence by a simple majority of the House of the People. Executive power lies with the Council of Ministers, which the prime minister appoints and leads. Removal runs through the courts: a third of the House of the People can bring a motion, the Constitutional Court decides whether it has legal grounds, and two-thirds of both houses can then dismiss the president.

The pairing has been unstable. Britannica records that three people held the post of prime minister between December 2013 and December 2014, and that a motion to impeach the president brought in August 2015 was dropped in favour of dialogue. BTI describes the dual executive as a check that worked in past years and has weakened as power was consolidated in the Office of the Presidency, and it reports that the 2024 amendments, with the new power to dismiss the prime minister, are seen as concentrating power in the president's hands.

How the member states divide the federation

Article 48 rules that no single region can stand alone: a region must merge with others to form a state, and until it does, the federal government administers it directly for at most two years. Article 49 bases state borders on the 18 administrative regions as they stood before 1991. Under Article 54, powers and resources are divided by negotiation, except for foreign affairs, national defence, citizenship and immigration, and monetary policy, which belong to the federal government.

Which states the federation holds in practice

BTI counts five member states in practice: Jubaland, South West, Hirshabelle, Galmudug and Puntland. Officially Somaliland is a sixth, represented in the Upper House, and Somaliland rejects that status. Puntland came first, in 1998, as a self-governing region that aimed to reunite the country as a federal republic. Jubaland signed an agreement with the federal government in Addis Ababa in August 2013, a South West State followed in 2014, and a formation conference for Hirshabelle opened in April 2015. Early in 2026 the federal government recognised North East State, declared in July 2025 on land that Somaliland and Puntland both claim, as a federal state; both rejected it.

Most of the states, BTI finds, are built on fragile clan balances. In Puntland the presidency usually rotates among the three most powerful clans of the region, and the state parliament's re-election of the sitting president on 8 January 2024 was the first re-election in its history. Puntland held direct municipal elections in May 2023 in 34 districts, and a plan to elect the state president by universal suffrage led to clashes in Garowe in June 2023 with more than 25 casualties. BTI reports that the smaller clans there fear losing representation under one person, one vote.

How Puntland and Jubaland left the federal system

Puntland announced its withdrawal after the amendments of March 2024 and said it would act independently until a constitution is ratified by a public referendum. It keeps its own security forces and intelligence organisation and has left the National Security Council.

Jubaland's parliament of 75 members re-elected the state's president to a third term on 25 November 2024. The federal government rejected the vote, citing the two-term limit in the amended constitution, and deployed 2,000 special security personnel to Raas Kambooni on the border with Kenya. Jubaland's forces made the federal units withdraw after clashes in November and December 2024, and several hundred federal troops crossed the border and surrendered to the Kenyan Defence Forces. In December 2025 Jubaland declared that it had left the federation.

In October 2025 leaders from Puntland and Jubaland and opposition figures from other states formed the Somali Future Council. By July 2026 the CRS was reporting that several state governments had cut ties with the federal government and that tensions were growing over control of the security forces. Crisis Group, writing on 18 September 2026, urged the political class to begin by settling the dispute over the timing and format of the elections.

Who governs where federal authority stops

Much of the rural south and centre answers to Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, which since 2011 has called the territory it holds the Islamic Emirate of Somalia. An executive council of between 7 and 14 members leads it with a consultative shura; its departments include taxation, local administration and Islamic courts, and ten appointed governors oversee civil services. The CRS reported in July 2026 that it collects up to $200 million a year through taxes and extortion and may have up to 18,000 fighters. BTI describes a shadow tax system in Mogadishu and other cities, based mainly on customs from trade through the main port, and courts that many people in government areas prefer because they are cheaper and quicker. The federal government calls the movement Khawarij and has told local media to use the acronym UGUS, from the Somali for "the group that massacres the Somali people". Crisis Group found in September 2026 that the movement was largely confined to rural areas and that the government's grip extended to most urban centres.

Which law the courts apply

Article 108 sets three tiers of courts: a Constitutional Court, federal courts headed by a Federal High Court, and courts in each member state. A Judicial Service Commission of nine members appoints federal judges and nominates the five judges of the Constitutional Court, whose exclusive powers include settling disputes between the federal government and the states.

Somali law draws on civil law, Islamic law and customary law. BTI describes formal courts working in parallel with xeer, the customary law negotiated case by case and applied by elders, and with Shariah courts, many of them financed by private business owners. Secular courts exist only in the larger cities. Executions rose from 11 in 2020 to 38 in 2023, and the report's finding is that there is no rule of law nationwide.

How Somaliland governs the territory it claims

The Somali National Movement, based on the Isaaq clan of the north and formed in 1982, fought the Siad Barre government from bases in Ethiopia. In May 1991, having secured the former British territory, it declared the federation of 1960 null and void and the north independent as the Republic of Somaliland, with Hargeisa as its capital. The federal government views Somaliland as its territory and opposes its search for recognition, and Article 7 of the 2012 constitution fixes the borders as those of the 1960 constitution and declares the territory indivisible. This catalogue records both positions, attributes each to those who hold it and adjudicates neither.

What Somaliland's own constitution sets up

A constitution of 130 articles, one of which affirms Somaliland's independence, went to a referendum on 31 May 2001; Wikipedia reports that 99.9% of eligible voters took part and that 97.1% voted in favour. It sets up a presidential republic with a parliament of two houses of 82 members each: a House of Representatives elected directly for five years, and a House of Elders, the guurti, chosen indirectly by local communities for six years, which can extend the terms of the president and the representatives when an election cannot be held. No more than three national parties are allowed, and the voting age is 15.

BTI notes that no election since 2001 has been held on schedule and that the House of Elders regularly extends its own mandate and has never been publicly elected. The fourth presidential election, on 13 November 2024, came two years late and was held jointly with party elections for the first time. Turnout was 53% of registered voters, the candidate of the opposition Waddani party took 64%, and the incumbent handed over power.

Somaliland does not hold all the territory it claims. After police killed several people at protests in Las Anood in December 2022, elders of the Dhulbahante clan declared their secession and formed the SSC-Khatumo administration, with the stated aim of rejoining Somalia. Fighting in early 2023 killed more than 100 people, Somaliland's troops withdrew in August 2023, and in October 2023 the federal government recognised SSC-Khatumo as a transitional administration.

Who has answered the claim abroad

On 1 January 2024 Ethiopia signed a memorandum with Somaliland to lease coastal land for a naval base, which reportedly included a provision for recognition; Somalia called it illegal and an act of aggression. After talks mediated by Türkiye, Ethiopia agreed to seek port access "under Somalia's sovereignty", and the two governments restored ties early in 2025. On 26 December 2025 Israel became the first UN member state to recognise Somaliland. Somalia's government called this an attack on its sovereignty, and the African Union and the Arab League rejected it. The State Department reported to Congress in 2026 that the United States still recognises "the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Somalia, which includes the region of Somaliland".

Who Somalia stands with abroad

Article 3 of the constitution describes Somalia as "a Muslim country which is a member of the African and Arab Nations". It was a founding member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation in 1969, joined the Arab League in February 1974, belongs to the African Union, IGAD and the East African Community, and holds a two-year seat on the UN Security Council for 2025 and 2026.

The African Union has kept troops in Somalia since 2007. Its mission, launched as AMISOM, had more than 22,000 troops in the mid-2010s and was down to about 12,000 by 2025; since 1 January 2025 it has been AUSSOM, authorised for up to 12,626 uniformed personnel. The European Union has provided almost €2.8 billion to it since 2007, the CRS records. In July 2026 the United States told the African Union it would not back an extension of the UN Support Office in Somalia, which keeps the mission supplied on a budget of nearly half a billion dollars, and in September it said it would consider twelve more months, Crisis Group reports. Somalia has signed bilateral security agreements with Uganda, Kenya and Ethiopia so that their troops stay if the mission withdraws.

Türkiye runs a large military base in Mogadishu, has trained the Gorgor special forces and signed a maritime security memorandum in February 2024 under which it equips and trains the Somali Navy. The United States recognised the Somali government in 2013 for the first time in 22 years and sent its first ambassador since 1991 in 2016; its forces carried out more than 130 airstrikes in Somalia in 2025 and nearly 70 in the first half of 2026. The dispute with Ethiopia in 2024 drew Somalia closer to Eritrea and Egypt.

On 13 December 2023 the IMF and the World Bank declared that Somalia had reached the completion point of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative, with debt service savings of US$4.5 billion, and its external debt fell from 64% of GDP in 2018 to less than 6% by the end of 2023. BTI notes that this gave Somalia access to financial institutions for the first time since 1991.