Constitutional crisis deepens as parliament’s mandate expires and rival alliances take shape in federal states
By our East Africa Correspondent | Global Echoes | April 22, 2026
MOGADISHU. Somalia is sliding toward its most consequential political rupture in years, with a hard deadline of May 15 now dividing those who govern in Mogadishu from those who insist the government will have no legal right to exist once that date passes. The opposition is not merely threatening to walk away. It is already building the architecture of an alternative authority.
The standoff stems from a March 2026 parliamentary vote that approved constitutional amendments extending the presidential and parliamentary terms from four to five years, effectively postponing scheduled elections from May 2026 to 2027. The amendments, signed into law by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud on March 8, concluded a constitutional review process that had already stretched over fourteen years. Rather than resolving the country’s institutional ambiguities, however, the exercise has exposed and deepened them. Opposition figures and two of Somalia’s most powerful federal member states, Puntland and Jubaland, reject the extension as an unconstitutional manipulation of the political process designed to keep one man in power beyond his agreed mandate.
“If we reach May 16, he will be the former president, because the agreed constitutional term ends on May 15,” said lawmaker Ga’ma Diiddo of the Himilo Qaran party, who took part in opposition meetings in Mogadishu. The language was unambiguous, and the message was directed not only at Villa Somalia but at the international community whose financial and diplomatic support underpins the federal government’s survival.
The Somali Future Council, an alliance that has coalesced around Puntland President Said Abdullahi Deni and Jubaland’s Ahmed Madobe, has announced plans for a National Salvation Conference before the mid-May deadline to establish what it describes as a transitional authority. Former presidents and prime ministers, including Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and Hassan Ali Khaire, have aligned with the Council, lending it a weight of institutional credibility that goes beyond regional grievance. Their formal coordination began in earnest at the Kismayo Summit in December 2025 and was sharpened through meetings in Garowe and Mogadishu in the weeks that followed, with technical committees developing what the Council describes as a practical plan for a parallel political process should dialogue fail entirely.
Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre rejected that framing, arguing that under both the 2012 draft constitution and the newly approved text, the president’s term runs for five years and remains valid into 2027. The government’s position is that the constitutional review was conducted lawfully, that parliament voted with the required majority, and that international partners should respect the outcome of a democratic process. Critics counter that the parliamentary votes were marred by procedural irregularities, including disputes over quorum and allegations of intimidation against opposition members of parliament, and that the absence of a public referendum, which the constitution itself requires for amendments of this magnitude, renders the entire exercise illegitimate.
The procedural objections carry particular weight given the political context. President Mohamud, who was among the most vocal critics of his predecessor’s attempted term extension in 2021, now stands accused of deploying an identical playbook. When former President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed attempted a two-year extension that year, it triggered armed clashes in Mogadishu and drew international censure. That precedent has not been forgotten by anyone watching the current standoff. The dispute echoes that 2021 crisis with an uncomfortable precision that opposition figures have been quick to highlight.
The constitutional argument is also inseparable from a broader set of grievances about the direction of Mohamud’s presidency. His push toward a universal suffrage electoral model, replacing the clan-based system that has structured Somali politics for decades, is viewed by Puntland and Jubaland as a centralising manoeuvre designed to diminish their influence and entrench federal government control over the electoral process. The amendments also grant the president authority to appoint the prime minister without requiring parliamentary approval, a shift that critics argue moves Somalia toward a presidential system in all but name.
The impasse has drawn concern from Western embassies and the United Nations, which have called for dialogue and adherence to constitutional norms. Those calls have so far produced three rounds of formal talks between the government and the opposition, none of which yielded agreement. President Mohamud has publicly committed to direct elections. The opposition has publicly committed to rejecting them unless conducted on terms that command national consensus. The gap between the two positions remains wide, and the calendar is running short.
Al-Shabaab, the al-Qaeda-affiliated insurgency still active in large parts of the Somali countryside, is watching. Analysts at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies have warned that Somalia’s political class is now dangerously polarised and increasingly unable to forge a unified front against their common enemy. The militants, for their part, appear content to allow their opponents to quarrel. A fragmented Mogadishu, preoccupied with its own legitimacy crisis, is a weakened Mogadishu. That is a calculation that requires no sophisticated intelligence apparatus to reach.
What happens on May 16 in Somalia will matter far beyond its borders. A country of 18 million people, strategically positioned on the Horn of Africa, with one of the most active Islamist insurgencies in the world, cannot afford a prolonged contest over who holds legitimate authority. The international community has invested heavily in Somalia’s fragile state-building project. Whether that investment survives the next three weeks depends on whether the men in Mogadishu, and in Garowe and Kismayo, choose the negotiating table over the alternative.
The deadline is no longer hypothetical. It is three weeks away.
Global Echoes East Africa Bureau. Reporting drawn from Mogadishu, Garowe, and Nairobi. The Federal Government of Somalia was approached for additional comment. This story is developing.
