Letter from Mogadishu: Universal suffrage vis a vis the Tanzanian election

President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud was among the two presidents from the East African Community who attended the inauguration and swearing-in of the Tanzanian president Samia Suluhu Hassan. The other president from the regional economic bloc was the Burundian president, Evariste Ndayishimiye.

The presidents from the other six member states either gave the ceremony a wide berth or were represented at a lower level. Kenya for instance sent its Deputy President Kithure Kindiki to represent President William Ruto.

As he sat in the front row at the main dais, President Mohamud must have taken some lessons from Tanzania after a bloody election that has been condemned by the African Union as well as the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) where Tanzania is also a member.

The Tanzanian election was boycotted by key opposition leaders after the candidate for the leading opposition party Tundu Lissu was imprisoned and barred from participating in the polls. Only fringe candidates offered themselves leading to President Samia to garner a staggering 98 percent of the ballots cast.

The opposition rejected the elections and termed them a sham since they had been barred from participating in the process.

The post-election violence that ensued is yet to be documented but suffice to say, the internet was brought down and an information black-out thrown over the entire Tanzania as protests and open violence hitherto unseen in Tanzania flared in one town after another. Dar Es Salaam was of course the hardest hit but others including the seat of the EAC in Arusha was not spared. Also affected by the violence were towns like Mwanza along Lake Victoria, Mbeya near Malawi and Songwe just to mention a few.

The ceremony the Somalia president attended must have given him food for thought. First, the inauguration was held at a military parade ground in Dodoma instead of a stadium as has been the tradition in Tanzania.

Secondly, members of the public were not allowed to attend the ceremony and security was tightened around the military ground. Only diplomats and invited guests were allowed to the ceremony which was beamed live to the country and other regions of the world.

President Mohamud will be facing an election early next year. He has been pushing for one-person one-vote which has not been practised in Somalia since 1969 when Siad Barre grabbed power through the barrel of the gun.

Since then, Barre threw out the constitution and ruled by the fiat until he was himself toppled in 1981 throwing Somalia into clan fights and eventually controlled by terror groups including the Al-Qaeda affiliate, Al-Shabaab.

Mohamud must have been wondering whether he was pushing for the right method to have for his country. Somalia has been using the 4.5 clan system since 2012 to elect its Members of Parliament who eventually pick the president. The system seems to work well for the war-torn country since the terrorist group still controls large swathes of land and peace is fragile.

The ceremony he was attending must have given him a lot of soul-searching to do once he landed back in Mogadishu. The president and the Independent electoral body have been trying to experiment with universal suffrage for Banadiir district (Mogadishu). But the municipal polls have been postponed twice and now set for November 29, 2025.

While voter registration has been carried out in Mogadishu and is currently ongoing in Waajid district there has been no effort to register voters in other parts of the country. It beats logic how Somalia can adopt universal suffrage while voter registration has not spread across the expansive nation.

President Mohamud must have been in deep thought as he sat in Dodoma wondering if he would want Somalia to take several steps backward just to satisfy those pushing for one-person one-vote instead of falling back on the in-direct election the country has used for the past three elections.

The president must have also realized that the opposition in his country is opposed to the one-person one-vote and the 2026 elections might end up the Tanzanian way-boycotted by the opposition and declared a sham by observer missions.

On his three-hour flight back to Mogadishu from Dodoma, Mohamud must have asked himself hard questions in regard to the forthcoming polls. We will watch his every move.

Meanwhile, the African Union Support and Stabilisation Mission in Somalia (AUSSOM) seems to be in a state of flux since the United States President Donald Trump reduced support to the United Nations following his election for a second term.

The mission in Somalia is almost on its knees with nothing tangible happening. Talk is that the mission will be relocating to Nairobi to operate from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) offices at Gigiri.

Reports also talk of soldiers on the peacekeeping mission who have not been paid for the last six months forcing some nations like Burundi to consider pulling out of the mission.

The inclusion of Egypt in the mission is also rubbing many countries the wrong way. The north Africans were eyeing being allocated sector Mogadishu which has been held by Ugandans for the longest time ever. This is said to have been outrightly rejected by Uganda.

Somalia has tried to get the Egyptians in Gedo region in Jubbaland but this seems to have faced resistance from both the Ethiopians and the Jubbaland administration where Gedo region is located. So where next will the Egyptians be “hawked”?