Somaliland heads to the polls amid domestic divisions and regional strife

Somaliland, the de facto independent state, has been at the centre of a year-long regional storm with Ethiopia. As voting gets under way, fears of internal conflict loom large.

Voting has begun in Somaliland’s presidential election, where the stakes are high and tensions across the country are at fever pitch.

Under Muse Bihi Abdi, the incumbent president, who came to power in 2017, Somaliland has attracted growing attention from global and regional powers, as geopolitical competition has intensified around the strategically important Red Sea.

Investment has poured in from the United Arab Emirates, which has built a port at Berbera and a transport corridor inland, while Ethiopia and the US have expressed interest in using Somaliland’s coastline for military purposes. For supporters of Bihi’s Kulmiye party, the president’s foreign policy in this changing environment has brought the country’s 30-year goal of formal recognition within reach.

Vice president swaps sides

The main opposition Waddani party, by contrast, led by Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi, who goes by the nickname ‘Irro’, argues that Bihi’s presidency has been marked by calamitous mismanagement, particularly concerning the war that erupted last year in the eastern city of Las Anod, which ended in a humiliating defeat for Somaliland’s national army and the loss of large swaths of territory.

“We have lost some of the regions of Somaliland,” said Irro during a press conference in Hargeisa on 10 November. “We want to unite our country [and] revitalise our economy, which went down because of the wars in the eastern regions.”

In a dramatic move at the same press conference, Somaliland’s current vice president, Abdirahman Saylici, renounced his support for Bihi and endorsed Irro instead. “Muse Bihi cannot be trusted with the nation,” Saylici said. “I was once his closest ally, but he has reneged on the commitments we swore to uphold.

Too close to call

Despite the high-profile defection, the election is expected to be close, although there is no reliable data on voting intentions in Somaliland, which has raised fears that a challenged result could plunge the country into violence.

“The run-up to the elections has been highly contested,” says Mohamed Abdirahman of the Institute for Strategic Insights and Research (ISIR), a think-tank in Hargeisa. “People are polarised, and we don’t know how many of them will be willing to wake up and take a mediatory role.”

The elections come after 11 months of regional tensions following the memorandum of understanding signed between Ethiopia and Somaliland in January. According to Bihi, Ethiopia agreed to recognise Somaliland in return for being granted a long-term lease to a strip of its coastline suitable for a naval base.

Bitter Internal divisions

Many observers suspect that Bihi had hoped to finalise the MoU before the election, betting that the promise of recognition would all but guarantee his victory. However, the furious response the deal provoked from Somalia, which considers Somaliland a renegade province, appears to have put the deal on ice.

Mogadishu has sought to pressure Ethiopia into abandoning the deal by forming a military alliance with Egypt and Eritrea, while the US has also voiced its opposition. There is also a sense that Ethiopia may be dragging its feet for fear of being seen as interfering in Somaliland’s elections.

Clan issues

This means that much attention has focused instead on Somaliland’s bitter internal divisions. Bihi’s critics attribute this to his militaristic leadership style and unwillingness to compromise. In 2022 his decision to extend his presidential term by two years led to violent protests, in which several people were killed.

Other analysts note that Somaliland’s social fissures long predate Bihi, although the sense of antagonism between certain sub-divisions of the dominant Issaq clan family appears to have intensified under his administration.

Waddani, the main opposition party, draws much of its support from the Garhajis clan, many members of which have long felt marginalised by Bihi’s Haber Awal group and others. Many observers worry that should Waddani lose, its supporters will regard the result as an anti-Garhajis conspiracy and refuse to accept the result.

“We might face some sort of post-election violence if [Waddani] loses – that’s the sentiment people have,” says Moustafa Ahmad, a political analyst in Hargeisa. “It’s not unique to Somaliland, but [there is a sense here] that when someone loses, it’s not just the party that loses, but also the constituency, or the clan, involved.”

A serious bout of electoral violence could damage Somaliland’s hard-earned reputation for stability, says Abdirahman of ISIR. At a time when many Somalilanders are hoping Donald Trump’s administration will shift America from its ‘One Somalia’ policy in favour of recognition, such an outcome would be a great setback.

“Whatever happens in Hargeisa in the next few days – for better or for worse – will have an impact not only on Somaliland’s national interest but also on the region and beyond,” says Abdirahman.

This story originally appeared on The Africa Report.

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