Somalia president, parliament extend mandates by one year after constitutional amendments
MOGADISHU (Somaliguardian) – Somalia’s president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, and the country’s parliament have secured a one-year extension of their mandates just weeks before their terms were due to expire, after lawmakers approved controversial constitutional amendments opposed by many political stakeholders. Parliament Speaker Adan Madobe, who has often been accused of hijacking parliament to advance the […]
Black News 
MOGADISHU (Somaliguardian) – Somalia’s president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, and the country’s parliament have secured a one-year extension of their mandates just weeks before their terms were due to expire, after lawmakers approved controversial constitutional amendments opposed by many political stakeholders.
Parliament Speaker Adan Madobe, who has often been accused of hijacking parliament to advance the ambitions of the current leadership, said the legislature will continue operating for another year after its mandate expires in April.
Speaking at an event hosted by Mohamud to celebrate the move, Madobe said lawmakers had gone into recess and would return to approve additional legislation during the extra year granted under the amended constitution.
The newly approved and widely disputed constitution extends the terms of both the president and parliament to five years, up from the previous four-year limit.
Madobe also said opposition lawmakers whom he had previously barred from attending the parliamentary session – a move intended to prevent them from disrupting the approval of the new constitution – should now return. He said all issues would be resolved, in what appeared to be an attempt to placate them.
However, many political actors have rejected the changes. The regional administrations of Jubaland and Puntland, along with other political stakeholders – including former presidents, prime ministers and senior officials – said they do not recognize the new constitution and consider it illegal.
They argue that constitution-building requires nationwide political consensus as well as approval by a two-thirds majority in Somalia’s bicameral parliament – conditions they say were not met in this case.
Opponents added that they only recognize the provisional constitution drafted in 2012 in Garowe under broad-based consensus as the country’s legitimate constitutional framework.
Critics warn that Mohamud is attempting to avoid holding elections and intends to remain in power indefinitely through constitutional amendments and arguments about conducting one-person, one-vote elections. They say such elections are not feasible given the government’s limited territorial control.
Some analysts also allege that Turkey is helping Mohamud consolidate his grip on power and facilitating what they describe as a power grab in a country where state-building efforts funded by billions of dollars from Western donors remain fragile and vulnerable to collapse without sustained foreign support.
“Turkey today is less cautious and increasingly becoming partisan. Turkey is now the No 1 chief enforcer and chief enabler of Hassan Sheikh’s power grab and destabilising authoritarian consolidation,” Rashid Abdi, an analyst on the Horn of Africa, said.
“Turkish state-run @trtafrika is now a full-time propaganda channel for HSM and the tiny Muslim Brotherhood Dam al-Jadid faction that controls reins of power,” he adds.
Abdi says if Ankara is capable of strategic thinking “it would know the risk of tethering all its interests on the fortunes of one leader.”
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