For more than a decade, Somalia’s election system has been decided by a remarkably small circle of elites. The faces around the table change slightly over the years, but the Somali people have remaine…
A real direct election was never built. With no time left to build one now, the honest choice is not a direct vote in name only but the enhanced indirect model Somalia has already survived, used to bu…
This article was inspired by a recent incident that attracted significant public attention. The media and social media platforms widely reported the case of a Somali man who was allegedly wanted by th…
There is a Somali folktale that tells of a clan called KASDARAN, plagued by bad counsel and left behind by its peers. Among them were several men notorious for their “faithlessness,” whose constant gr…
For generations, pastoral communities in Ethiopia’s Somali Region have lived with drought, scarcity and uncertainty. They did not survive because the environment was generous. They survived because th…
For more than three decades, Somalia has lived through an almost predictable political cycle. Every new administration arrives with optimism, ambitious promises, and public expectations that this time…
Somalia has no shortage of people willing to explain its collapse. Warlords blame foreign intervention. Politicians blame tribalism. Commentators blame history, colonial borders, bad luck, anyone but …
Somalia stands at one of the most consequential political crossroads since the adoption of federalism. The decisions taken—or deferred—over the coming days will shape not only the country’s next elect…
Centuries ago, in the Muqaddimah, Ibn Khaldun described the phase at which dynasties end. Writing on the causes of the collapse of states, he set it down in a single sentence:
إذا احتاج السلطان إلى ا…
For many people, the phrase open source still brings to mind software developers sharing code on the internet. It is often associated with free software, volunteer communities, or programming projects…
The renewed rise in irregular migration (Tahriib) among Somali youth is raising difficult questions about the country’s future. Public attention often focuses on the dangers of Libya and the Mediterra…
Chinese-hosted debates about the end of the liberal order were often more realistic than Western ones. The harder task now is for Africa, and Somalia in particular, to survive and shape the rivalrous …
I recently sat with a group of intellectuals and young people, engaging in a debate that captured the crossroads our nation faces. The discussion circled around Somalia's current political deadlock. …
Sacdiya (Sadia) shares a name with my elder sister. But looking at her, I realized we share far more than the name. We share a reality.
When her three-year prison verdict dropped, I called a close …
Leadership is often measured not only by the battles won, but by the institutions left behind. In Somalia's federal landscape, where political transitions have often been accompanied by uncertainty, P…
If you have been reading my pieces here on The Republic Blueprint over the last few months, none of what is happening right now should come as a surprise. Since early March, I have laid out exactly ho…
Somali Stream expresses its profound dismay and unequivocally condemns the arbitrary arrest and detention of our journalist, Abdulkadir Abukar Ali (Diirshe). We call for his immediate and unconditiona…
Situated strategically at the crossroads of Africa, Asia, and Europe, Djibouti has emerged as a vital gateway connecting these three continents. This small but significant country, located in the Horn…
Somalia has spent years arguing about how to organise power at home. The world has spent the same years rediscovering why power matters in the waters around it. Those two conversations are now converg…
The Price of a Seat
Picture a hotel room in Nairobi, or Djibouti, or Dubai. The curtains are drawn. On the table sits a briefcase, or sometimes just a manila envelope. Across from it sits a clan de…
The race to become the next Speaker of Somalia’s House of the People has entered a new and increasingly competitive phase, exposing fault lines within the governing establishment and triggering an int…
Somalia's political landscape took a significant turn this week after the Somalia Future Council (Golaha Mustaqbalka Soomaaliyeed) formally approved and submitted a comprehensive Transitional Direct E…
Fahad Yasin, Somalia's former National Security Adviser, former Director of the National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA), and former Chief of Staff to the President, has announced the publicat…
MINNESOTA, USA — In a wide-ranging political interview, Dr. Abdiweli Mohamed Ali Gaas, an economist, former Prime Minister of Somalia, and former President of Puntland, offers a rare and detailed acco…
By: Ahmed Abdullahi Gulleid
Prefatory Note
A civilization does not survive seven millennia in one of the world’s most demanding ecological and geopolitical environments by accident. It survives,…
The confrontation that unfolded in Mogadishu on 3 June will be remembered not because an opposition demonstration was planned, but because of how Hassan Sheikh Mohamud (HSM), whose constitutional mand…
Between 1 and 7 June 2026, Mogadishu witnessed armed confrontation in the capital, emergency mediation by clan elders, a brief paralysis of government business, and an unusual concentration of diploma…
Somalia is firmly on a trajectory of progress, stability, and democratic transformation, despite the persistent challenges it continues to face. The nation is not stagnant; rather, it is advancing wit…
Somalia's government has been hit by explosive accusations that it unleashed drones, mortars and heavy artillery meant for use in the fight against Alshabab, against opposition politicians in the capi…
The latest wave of violence in Mogadishu serves as a stark reminder of Somalia’s endless political struggles. The fragility and structural weaknesses of the state became evident when government forces…
Somalia finds itself at a decisive political crossroads. The nation, after decades of conflict, state failure, reconstruction, and limited political gains, is now once again uncertain about its politi…
For more than three decades, Somalia has lacked many institutional underpinnings that are often associated with economic stability, but despite conflict, political fragmentation, recurrent droughts, i…
May God have mercy on its soul. That is what Somalis say at funerals. It is also the appropriate response to the political philosophy that governed Somalia for the last three years.
"Cidna looma jo…
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…
The passing of the May 15th threshold was supposed to bring an end to the guessing game in Somali politics. Instead, we all watched the latest high-stakes attempt at dialogue in Mogadishu fall apart. …
Somali politics will always be the business of deals. The question is which deals corrode the state and which ones build it.
Every serious Somali politician knows that politics is the business of m…
At the end of April, Somalia’s Minister of Interior, Ali Yusuf Ali Hoosh, publicly announced that the Federal Government had already decided that Speaker Sheikh Aden Mohamed Nur (Aden Madoobe) would b…
Baidoa, the second-largest city hosting internally displaced people (IDPs) in Somalia, is currently facing growing political tension, particularly over electoral disputes and leadership issues in Sout…
For many decades, the promise of Somalia’s offshore riches has been more myth and dream than reality. A talking point used to spark hope without ever breaking ground. However, the arrival of the Turki…
Yesterday, May 15, 2026 - a date etched in the global consciousness as a symbol of solidarity with young people marks a somber milestone. The conclusion of a four-year mandate defined not by state-bui…
Somalia’s national identity initiative represents one of the country’s most significant digital governance projects in decades. In a country where fragmented records, weak verification systems, and in…
As Somalia edges closer to a pivotal political transition, Türkiye has quietly but decisively emerged as one of the most trusted mediators working to prevent instability and preserve national cohesion…
When President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud campaigned under the slogan, “Somalis at peace with themselves and at peace with the rest of the world,” many Somalis believed the country was entering a new polit…
To Somalia's international partners,
I write as a Somali citizen and former diplomat who has represented our country in postings including China, Sweden, the United States, and the United Nations. …
GAROWE, Somalia — Under countless flickers of fluorescent lights in a crowded hall in Garowe, a city that has long served as a sanctuary of relative stability in the otherwise volatile country, a hush…
Somalia’s deepening assault on press freedom took another alarming turn Friday evening after security forces reportedly abducted and brutally assaulted the Director of Somali Stream’s Mogadishu office…
Key members of the elite of the Northeastern State of Somalia, both inside the country and within the diaspora, watch with deep trepidation the existential threat facing Somalia under the self‑serving…
Each year on May 15, Somalia commemorates National Youth Day—a moment rooted not only in history, but in the enduring legacy of youth-led collective action. The Somali Youth Club was founded in 1943 b…
A fast-moving political confrontation in Baidoa is exposing new fault lines inside Somalia’s federal architecture, with the exiled leadership of Southwest State accusing Mogadishu of overreach and war…
In Somalia today, a quiet but dangerous shift is unfolding across food markets.
Food, meant to nourish, sustain, and protect life, is in some cases doing the opposite. Across markets, staple produc…
