The author says President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s term ended May 15 with no election plan; four months on, Villa Somalia still governs while Future Council talks fill the gap—government by possession, not consent.

Unilateral constitutional changes and term extension, he argues, break the 2012 bargain with founding members such as Puntland (1998). Puntland and Jubaland already act confederal; Mohamed Dhabancad accuses Mogadishu of pocketing concessions and inventing a tame opposition while pushing Hirshabelle votes outside national talks.

A Sept. 3 Doolow blast and August Baidoa fighting are cited as why security guarantees and UN “guarantors,” not mere facilitators, are needed (letter to Guterres ahead of an October Security Council review). Partners should demand a Doolow inquiry, a pause on pre-emptive state polls, an enforceable deal, and a dated national election—or the union drifts apart by default.

Somalia is no longer arguing about how to hold an election. It is arguing about whether the union has any binding terms at all.

President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s four-year constitutional term formally expired on May 15, and it ended with no plan for an upcoming election. Four months later, the federal government still governs, the Somali Future Council still negotiates and the Somali people still wait. Government by possession has replaced government by consent. The talks have become a way to fill the gap while the incumbent consolidates his position.

The bargain that was broken

The 2012 Provisional Constitution was never a finished charter. It was a bargain among Somali political communities, and several of them existed as functioning administrations before the federal government did. Puntland, founded in 1998, is not a province of Mogadishu. It is a founding party to the federal arrangement. The union’s legitimacy rests on the continued consent of its members, not on whoever occupies Villa Somalia.

Rewriting the foundational chapters through a parliament whose own mandate is contested does not reform that bargain. It breaks it. Extending terms by the same method compounds the breach. The opposition’s position has been consistent throughout. It declared firm opposition to unilateral amendments to the 2012 provisional constitution made outside established legal procedures, rejected any extension of federal mandates beyond their legal terms and warned that elections held without broad political agreement would lack legitimacy. Those are not radical demands. They are the minimum conditions for a federation to........

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