Somalia's power-hungry president has taken his country to the brink
Setting o a political crisis is always a risky business. Unleashing one in a country that has known little peace for 30 years, and where your opponents are at least as well armed as you are, seems doubly foolhardy. On the evening of April 25th violence duly broke out in Mogadishu. This time there was nothing celebratory about the gunfire. Somalis were shooting not into the air but at each other.
Whether such a disaster can be averted depends in large part on how Mr Mohamed responds. In a bid to defuse tension he has promised to ditch a law, forced through parliament in April, extending his term by two years. He has also agreed to return to talks on how to hold elections.
Mr Mohamed’s choices appear to be narrowing. His power grab has cost him most of his remaining political capital abroad. Western powers, theUN and the African Union, guilty of dithering and sending mixed messages in the past, all opposed his attempts to extend his presidency. He is struggling financially, too. His finance minister recently called on Somalis living abroad to help pay the country’s public-sector wage bill by depositing money in government bank accounts.
Mr Mohamed could yet opt to settle things on the battlefield. Officially he still commands the loyalty of foreign-trained special-forces brigades, as well as units within national intelligence and the army. Yet even here clan loyalties are straining cohesion, says Matt Bryden, director of Sahan Research, a Somalia-oriented thinktank. Diplomats hope Mr Mohamed will be sensible and capitulate rather than risk a civil war he may well lose.
byIf he goes, his departure may not be the end of the story—indeed, it could be the easy part. His opponents are presently united by their loathing for Mr Mohamed. His absence could cause them to turn on each other, as happened in 1991, when the dictator Siad Barre was ousted, only to unleash a civil war fought along clan lines. Lessons have since been learned and more recent elections have passed o peacefully enough, but they were not contested in so febrile an atmosphere.
As Somalia’s latest crisis worsens, only one faction is enjoying the show: al-Shabab, the al-Qaeda affiliate that controls much of the countryside (see map). The lust for power and the tawdry squabbling that presently grip Somalia’s politicians play into the jihadists’ hands. Only the establishment of a rules-based system that brings genuine benefit to the people will thwart them: a sadly distant prospect.
Source:The Economist
Somalia's power-hungry president has taken his country to the brink
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