When the Somali state collapsed and the civil war destroyed lives, assets, and public institutions, Somali political stakeholders and clan elders came together and agreed on a clan-based power-sharing system to revive the Somali state. As a result, Somalia spent decades operating under an indirect electoral system and clan-based power-sharing arrangements to elect MPs, Senators, and other political positions, including state assembly members and local councils.
Now, the government of Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is attempting to move the country away from indirect elections toward a one-person, one-vote electoral system while also preserving the existing power-sharing formula. The debate now is whether Somalia is capable of conducting such elections despite the lack of technical knowledge and institutional capacity required to implement the new one-person, one-vote model while maintaining a fixed clan quota system.
What Type of Election Is Being Introduced?
Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s government announced that elections for local councils and regional state assemblies, known as Federal Member States, would be conducted using a closed-list proportional representation system. This is a standard electoral system used in many countries around the world, including Spain, South Africa, and Rwanda.
This system is also anchored in the new electoral law. According to Article 11, Paragraph 4 of the electoral law, elections for State Assemblies, SSC-Khaatumo, the Mogadishu City Council, and district councils are to be conducted using a closed-list proportional representation system.
What Is a Closed-List Proportional Representation System?
This is an electoral system in which the public votes for political parties as a whole rather than individual candidates. Under this model, political parties submit ranked candidate lists before the election. The parties themselves decide who appears on the list and in what order.
To emphasize the type of election and avoid ambiguity, the electoral law clearly states in Article 42, Paragraph 1 that political organizations and parties must submit the list of candidates participating in the election 120 working days before election day.
How Seats Are Won Under the Closed-List System
In a closed-list proportional representation system, the votes received by political parties are converted into parliamentary seats using a percentage-based formula. This is clear in Article 70, Paragraph 2, parties receive seats based on the share of votes they obtain.
The seats won by each party are then assigned to candidates according to the order in which they appear on the pre-submitted party list. Article 70, Paragraph 4 states: The Commission shall announce the number and names of the members elected to the Local Councils and State Assemblies according to the order of the candidate list submitted by each political party or organization.
If a party wins five seats based on its total vote share, the top five individuals named on that party’s list are awarded those legislative seats regardless of their clan or gender.
The Main Test: South West Parliamentary Elections
The South West election was the first major test of Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s electoral model and the technical capacity of the election commission to implement an election that combines public voting with clan-based power sharing.
The commission conducted the South West State Assembly/parliamentary election on May 10 to elect 95 MPs representing 57 clans, with every clan already knowing which seats belong to them. The election itself does not alter the existing clan-based power-sharing arrangement, as acknowledged in the electoral law itself. Article 16, Paragraph 1 states: The number of members and membership requirements of each State Assembly/SSC-Khaatumo shall be determined by the constitution of that State.
In practical terms, this means that the structure of parliamentary seats and the clans assigned to them remain defined by the regional constitutions.
The Contradiction Between One-Person, One-Vote Elections and Clan Quotas
After the election was completed and the public cast their votes, it became clear that public voting and clan quotas cannot function together; one must be eliminated for the other to succeed.
A one-person, one-vote proportional election assumes that seats are determined by voters through pre-determined ranked party lists submitted before the election, with candidates winning seats according to their ranking. A clan quota system, however, assumes that seats are predetermined through political agreements between politicians and clan elders, which is essentially an indirect election system.
For example, if a clan is allocated one parliamentary seat, it cannot lose that seat regardless of the election results or party-list rankings. Likewise, if candidates from that same clan were to win 10 seats through the party-list election process, the clan would still legally be entitled to only one seat under the clan quota arrangement.
This reality effectively ended the one-person, one-vote system promoted by Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s government.
The Election Commission’s Extra-Legal Solution
Several days after the election, the election commission failed to announce the results, even though the electoral law required them to be announced within 24 hours of election day.
The election commission and political parties then came up with a solution that ignored both the election results and the candidate lists officially submitted by the parties, effectively turning the election into an indirect process rather than a direct one-person, one-vote election.
The commission and political parties effectively replaced the clan elders and clan delegates who traditionally participated in and decided parliamentary seats during indirect elections. They redistributed seats outside both the proportional representation system and the electoral law itself by reapplying clan quotas after the vote.
The commission also changed the lists of officially submitted candidates, with many candidates transferred to different parties after competing under another party while others that never participated were added to winners and winners removed from the list.
Now, the question is this, if the election commission and political parties have replaced the traditional clan elders, and if public votes ultimately mean nothing because clan allocations still determine the outcome, then what was the purpose of abandoning the old indirect system in which elders openly selected MPs in the first place?
Hassan Sheikh Mohamud government’s attempt to combine a one-person, one-vote electoral system with a fixed clan quota arrangement has exposed a fundamental contradiction at the center of Somalia’s political transition.
A closed-list proportional representation system can only function properly if election results are determined by public votes and pre-submitted party lists. Once political actors begin redistributing seats after the election to satisfy clan quotas or political interests, the process ceases to be a genuine democratic election and instead becomes another form of indirect election.
The South West election demonstrated that Somalia has not yet resolved the conflict between democratic competition and clan-based power sharing. As long as parliamentary seats remain predetermined through clan agreements, public voting cannot meaningfully determine political outcomes.
If Hassan Sheikh Mohamud truly wants to implement a one-person, one-vote system, then political power must belong to the people not the election commission or political parties funded by the state. The country must either fully commit to a genuine one-person, one-vote system in which votes determine representation, or openly acknowledge that the current process remains an indirect power-sharing arrangement operating under the slogan of one-person, one-vote as a form of political survival and mandate extension.
Abdulrasak Abduljalil