The Intractable Wrangling And Deepening Crisis Between The Topechelons Had Soared Exponentially In Somalia

Little spark had ignited unprecedented spat between the maverick, lameduck president and politically novice premier who was assigned to act as a caretaker PM and lead the country into indirect polls or carry out the long delayed indirect election that the president had failed to do during his tenure.

The constitutional mandate of the incumbent president expired in February this year while legislative and presidential elections remain at loggerhead, this tension was expected to die down soon but it has escalated and still remains unabated. The embattled and beleaguered president and deeply polarized Federal member states, some allied with president Farmajo while others had close affiliation with dissident groups, numerous conventions were held to try to heal the current crisis and to explore the best way to be out of this turmoil and these conventions were held under the auspices of the United nations and international community to bring together the federal government and FMS in Somalia but these meetings were counterproductive and ended in vain.

The major stumbling block that led these meetings to end in futile was the type of the election and who will spearhead the process of the election. Somali's political pundits and constitutional experts had unanimously concurred that the constitution is blameworthy due to its ambiguity and being murky.

The Somali's provisional constitution was adopted in 2012 and still it remains sketchy, let alone to be accomplished and undergo public referendum, the Somali constitution was victimized and vilified by Somali stakeholders and became a chessboard to be played by the ruling coteries and dissident groups and each is blaming the other of flagrant infringement of the constitution by presenting a trumped up charges and unreliable evidence.

Who is right and who is wrong?

Who is acting outside his authority?

Why we lack the constitutional court?

Both are calling each other's action unconstitutional.

The Somali constitutional law experts are not willing to disambiguate the murky articles of the constitution and remain dead silent forever. Plethora of election related deals were signed but it was never ratified and implemented notably 17 September agreement and bloody confrontation erupted right after the agreement was tabulated, to make the matter worse. On 19 February the federal troops fired intentionally with live ammunitions to the protesters including former PM Khaire against incumbent president who extended his term in office unconstitutionally, the former prime minister had narrowly survived and issued press statement saying it was premeditated and orchestrated assassination.

As a result the dissident candidates pushed back this brutal decision taken by the government and split the national army into clan lines and several units had withdrawn from the frontlines who were battling with Alshebab and rebelled ,defected and eventually sided with the copperhead dissenters and brief skirmishes erupted and many people had fled from the city and it became desolated and no go area and full blown offensive was imminent.

On 01 May, the lower house has revoked the term extension. The lower house of the parliament had unilaterally extended the term of the president and donor countries had swiftly got involved and exerted gigantic pressure to all sides to defuse and de-escalate the tension and come to the negotiating table and iron out their rift.

Now, fresh rift among the president and the prime minister erupted after NISA unleashed report claiming that Ikran Tahlil was abducted and murdered by Alshebab.and pledged to present irrefutable and incontrovertible evidence to substantiate this case sooner or later.

The prime minister had infuriated and released another letter to utterly debunk this statement by citing the report of the intelligence agency is too late and too little and held an ultimatum to come up with detailed and fathomable report within 48 hours.

The plight had exacerbated when the prime minister had fired the head of NISA who was suspected to be the mastermind of the murder case and he was close ally with the president and the move and the shaker for the last four years in Somalia's politics.

Tit for tat game continued and prime minister had sacked the security minister with immediate effect and appointed outspoken and vitriolic critic of the president as the new minister of security.

On the other hand the president's team engaged a character assassination and smear campaign against the prime minister by citing that the prime minister has sided with the copperhead dissidents and taken reckless actions to jeopardize the country and he is no longer neutral.

Today the president has issued a presidential decree to curtail and truncate the executive powers of the prime minister in the latest twist of the feud that may plunge the Horn of Africa nation into another vicious cycle of apocalyptic anarchy, internecine and fratricidal conflict with catastrophic consequences.

The current rift will disburden and give leeway to the extremist groups to reorganize and conquer new swathe of territory and continue to stage deadly and devastating onslaughts anytime soon and country's future will be bleak and at stake.

Mohamed Hussein Mentalist.

Author, blogger and senior lecturer at Mogadishu University.