Is There a "Palace Coup" in Villa Somalia?

The United Nations Special Envoy to Somalia, Ambassador Augustine Mahiga, is up in arms.

Recently, in an interview, with Somalia Report which was riddled with omissions and evasions, Mahiga intimated that there had been a new political development that Somalis ought to know. There is, according to Mahiga, a palace coup in Villa Somalia, the seat of the Somali presidency.


Who are the culprits?

“The Ala-Sheikh group,” Mahiga asserted, “is back in power, which should not be downplayed.”

The Ala-Sheikh group, according to the Ambassador, is a group of fundamentalists, anti-power sharing, anti- Roadmap, and similar to the Shabab except they do not carry arms.

Moreover, Mahiga lashed out at former PM Farmajo for attempting to stage a comeback into Somalia’s political landscape and, b) inspiring some members of the Ala-Sheikh group in forming a political forum which, incidentally, Mahiga claims came into existence when Farmajo was briefly in power.

Ambassador Mahiga, in the interview, even dropped a bombshell when he dangled the name of the International Criminal Court in a discussion about those figures in the country that are obstructing the process of peace and reconciliation. These are the people who have, according to Mahiga, “vested interests in the status quo.” These people, the good ambassador warns, “will have to protect themselves against the ICC (International Criminal Court) one day.”

The Somali conundrum will try the patience of the most seasoned diplomat. But in his interview, the ambassador will not be nominated the award for the diplomat of the year . In a frontal attack, Ambassador Mahiga squarely blamed the opportunists and naysayers for the political wrangling in Mogadishu. Farmajo and the Ala-Sheikh group, in essence, are on the forefront.

Ambassador Mahiga’s interview and the allegations he made were nor borne out of a vacuum. He is not a man given to emotional outbursts. At best, the ambassador has made these accusations with several issues in mind. First, he wants the completion of the Roadmap process without being railroaded. Second, he wants the forces that are trying to torpedo the process be exposed and stopped. Third, Mahiga was noticeably, perhaps even purposefully, sizing up his old nemeses. He wants to settle the score with Farmajo and a group of Ala-Sheikh politicians including Abdikarim Jama. To Mahiga, he is seeing the fingerprints of Farmajo in the Daljir Forum. It does not help that many of the new leaders of the Daljir Forum are, conveniently, former members of Farmajo’s cabinet.

Abdullahi Abyan Nur __ Minister of Justice and Religious Affairs
Abdirashid Khalif Hashi __ Minister of Public Works and Reconstruction
Abdikarim Jama __Minister of Information, Post, and Telecommunications

Incidentally, Dahir Mohamoud Ghelle, Chair of Daljir, was formerly the Minister of Information under PM Omar A. Sharmarke and is a current member of the parliament.

Farmajo and members of the Daljir Forum have, among other things, a common imperative; namely an opposition to the Roadmap. This convergence of interests by these two groups is what concerns Mahiga the most. Abdikarim Jama was a longtime Chief of Staff and Senior Advisor to President Sheikh Sharif when he was not serving in Farmajo’s cabinet. The two, incidentally, belong to the Ala-Sheikh group, an Islamic movement with no history of violence and radicalism.

The fact that Ambassador Mahiga is worried about Farmajo forming his own political party and, hence, is staging a comeback, must be unsettling to the UN Envoy. Regardless of how Somalis perceive Farmajo (positively or negatively), he is a Somali citizen who has the right to form his own political party. Yet, somehow, Mahiga does not hesitate to soil the man’s reputation as he paints him as ambitious and cunning.

Let me go back to the issue of the “palace coup” in Villa Somalia.

For starters, there are six Islamic movements in southern Somalia. They are the Tajamuc (commonly known as the Ala-Sheikh group), al-Ictissam (formerly al-Itihad), Islah, New Blood Islah, Ahlu Sunnah Wal-Jama, and the Shabab. Only the latter two are involved in armed combat. The Tajamuc was formed by the late Sheikh Mohamed Moalim Hassan (the father of Islamic revivalism in Somalia) and his supporters. The Islah movement is the branch of the International Muslim Brotherhood that was formed by Sheikh Mohamed Garyare and his colleagues in the late 1970s. During the emergence of the Islamic Courts Union, some members of Islah joined the courts and were expelled. These members formed the New Islah and have generally allied themselves, from time-to-time, with al- Ictissam and the Ala-Sheikh group in various political positions. Former Abdiqassim Salad Hassan was a known sympathizer of Islah whereas Sheikh Sharif, the current president, belongs to the Ala-Sheikh. These ideological affiliations by these two presidents apparently did not make them tilt their respective administrations to militancy. Each president operated in an arranged political framework.

Contrary to what Mahiga claims, there is no palace coup in Mogadishu. Sheikh Sharif is still the president of Somalia and he has yet to withdraw his support for the Roadmap. There have not been manifestations, other than the usual jockeying for power for post-August 2012, that lead us to believe that something is amiss in Villa Somalia. However, the notion that the “Ala-Sheikh group” is controlling the Somali presidency is preposterous. In the complex and complicated political situation of Mogadishu, organized groups, with the exception of the Shabab, are not as effective as one might assume. It is mostly individual political figures that shape the political process, and often these individuals act on the backdrop of clans, broadly conceived. Therefore, the Islamic groups such as the Tajamuc, al-Ictissam, New Blood Islah, and Old-Islah are not independent actors actively involved in shaping policies. There are, though, politicians who are associated with these Islamic movements who are ministers, parliamentarians, or heads of political forums.

For instance, the new political group, Daljir Forum, is depicted as an alliance between three Islamic groups (the al-Ictissam, Tajamuc, and New Blood Islah) yet the leaders heading the group are merely politicians who happen to be members of the above-mentioned movements. Dahir Mohamoud Ghelle (al-Ictissam) Abdikarim Hassan Jama (Tajamuc), Abdullahi Abyan (New Blood Islah), Hassan Moalim (Tajamuc), for instance, do not necessarily speak on behalf of their grassroots organizations. Moreover, neither the Tajamuc nor the al-Ictissam, as broad movements, have endorsed or condemned-- for that matter-- the new Daljir Forum. Simply put, Daljir Forum is, at best, a political grouping that wants to be an effective force in the political process but may (or may not) enjoy the full backing of the very groups they claim to represent. It is unlike Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Nour Party (Salafi) members of the parliament are politicians who owe their seats to their respective movements and, hence, are accountable to them. A good example is the Salafi parliamentarian from the al-Nour Party who, recently, had a nose job only to find himself expelled by his Party, thereby losing his parliamentary seat, because the plastic surgery he had was ‘sacrilegious’ in the eyes of his party leaders.

Somalia’s Islamic groups, one day, will come to power, as Dr. Afyare Abdi Elmi predicted in his book, Understanding the Somalia Conflagration: Identity, Political Islam, and Peacebuilding (2010), long before there was any talk of the Arab Spring. Time is on their side. The trend of Islamists coming to power has been happening in the Middle East and North Africa. However, from the time being, there are other forces that do not allow the Islamists to gain power in Somalia. For instance, the clan structure in the country and the fact that moderate Islamic groups such as the Islah, the Tajamuc, and the al-Ictissam have not fully invested themselves by becoming involving with the political process, on a full-time basis, prevent the rise of an Islamic “takeover.” In reality, these three groups are neither armed nor have the capacity to run the country. Perhaps, the recent Turkish involvement in Somalia will have an un-choreographed side effect. It will enable some of the Islamic groups to learn something from the Justice and Development Party that currently rules Turkey. Perhaps a lesson in how to be engaged with the Somali populace with a clear political platform that is based on tolerance, inclusiveness, equality, freedom of expression, and the abiding conviction that one can be voted out of office anytime.

I am sorry to break it to Ambassador Mahiga, but, to the best of our knowledge and belief, there is no palace coup in Villa Somalia. There might be a truncated view of Somalia’s moderate Islamic groups. Perhaps, there are other nefarious forces--not named the Ala-Sheikh-- that have bigger stake in making sure that the Roadmap does not succeed.