Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Somalia's Fractious Federal Politics

War on the Rocks posted on 30 January 2019 a commentary titled "The Saga of Mukhtar Robow and Somalia's Fractious Politics" by Christopher Anzalone, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, and Stig Jarle Hansen, Norwegian University of Life Sciences.

The authors argue that former al-Shabaab leader Muktar Robow's arrest by the Somali government should be understood in the context of the power struggle between Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed "Farmajo" and Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khayre, on the one hand, and the Somali semi-autonomous regional states. Farmajo's and Khayre's opposition to Robow was tied to their own desire to weaken the power of South West State, where Robow was running for president.