A WDM-Style Editorial Essay
For more than six decades, Somalis have searched for better leaders. They have changed presidents, prime ministers, constitutions, political systems, military rulers, transitional governments, and federal arrangements. Yet the country remains trapped in the same vicious cycle of dictatorship, corruption, clan patronage, institutional collapse, and recurring political crises.
Perhaps Somalis have been asking the wrong question.
The real problem may not be who becomes president. The real problem may be the presidency itself.
That office has become Somalia’s most destructive political institution. It is the black hole into which constitutions disappear, institutions collapse, public resources are looted, and national unity is sacrificed. Every election becomes a struggle not over ideas or policies, but over who captures the presidency—and with it, the power to dominate everyone else.
The office no longer serves the state. The state exists to serve the office.
The Presidency Produces Kings, Not Public Servants
The Somali Constitution formally envisages a parliamentary system. In practice, however, Somalia operates under an increasingly imperial presidency.
Every president eventually attempts to become bigger than the Constitution itself.
Parliament becomes an inconvenience.
The judiciary becomes a political instrument.
Independent commissions become extensions of Villa Somalia.
Security institutions become personal guards.
Public resources become political weapons.
The result is predictable. Every administration centralizes authority, weakens oversight, rewards loyalists, punishes critics, and governs through patronage rather than law.
Different personalities.
Identical outcomes.
The Presidency Has Become the Engine of Clan Conflict
Every presidential election turns into a national clan confrontation because everyone understands one uncomfortable truth:
The presidency controls everything.
It controls appointments.
It controls contracts.
It controls foreign aid.
It controls security forces.
It controls intelligence agencies.
It influences justice.
Naturally, every clan views State House not merely as an office but as political survival itself.
Winning becomes everything.
Losing becomes unacceptable.
Thus Somalia has unintentionally designed the perfect constitutional machine for permanent instability.
Even the Federal Member States copied the disease.
Instead of creating decentralized democracies, they merely established smaller presidential kingdoms where regional presidents exercise similar powers with similar consequences.
The infection spread because the constitutional virus was never cured.
Somalia Does Not Need Another Strongman
Every election produces promises of a “new beginning.”
Every president promises accountability.
Every president promises constitutionalism.
Every president promises national reconciliation.
Then reality intervenes.
Power changes people because concentrated power always changes institutions before it changes individuals.
The presidency rewards personal loyalty over competence.
It encourages fear rather than consultation.
It transforms public office into personal property.
No constitutional amendment can permanently restrain an office built upon excessive concentration of authority.
The office itself must be redesigned.
Replace One Man with Collective Leadership
Instead of electing another political emperor every four years, Somalia should abolish the presidency entirely.
Replace it with a Council of Chairpersons exercising collective executive authority.
No single individual would possess overwhelming constitutional power.
The chairmanship would rotate annually among council members.
Executive decisions would require collective deliberation rather than presidential decree.
Power would become shared rather than monopolized.
Politics would become negotiation rather than domination.
Such an arrangement would significantly reduce the zero-sum struggle that has poisoned Somali politics for generations.
Nobody would be able to capture the State because nobody would own the executive.
This Is Not Political Fantasy
History demonstrates that constitutional systems can change.
Armenia transformed itself into a parliamentary republic by substantially reducing presidential authority and strengthening parliament.
Georgia followed a similar path by converting the presidency into a largely ceremonial institution while vesting executive authority in parliament and the prime minister.
Moldova attempted the same transition, although later constitutional complications led to the restoration of direct presidential elections.
These examples reveal two important lessons.
First, constitutional reform is possible.
Second, institutional culture matters more than constitutional text.
Somalia should not mechanically copy foreign models. It should design a uniquely Somali solution that reflects its own political realities rather than imported constitutional theories.
Reform Peacefully—or Risk Revolutionary Change
Across Somalia, frustration continues to grow.
Allegations of corruption.
Abuse of public office.
Illegal land seizures.
Misuse of security institutions.
Constitutional violations.
Political exclusion.
Public confidence continues to erode because citizens increasingly see institutions serving politicians rather than politicians serving institutions.
History offers an unmistakable warning.
When peaceful constitutional mechanisms cease to deliver accountability, societies eventually seek justice outside constitutional frameworks.
Revolutions rarely begin because people love instability.
They begin because institutions stop working.
Somalia should never allow itself to reach that point again.
A National Constitutional Convention
This transformation cannot emerge from Villa Somalia alone.
Nor should it.
It requires a genuinely inclusive National Constitutional Congress bringing together federal institutions, Federal Member States, traditional leaders, civil society, legal scholars, political parties, women, youth, and the wider Somali public.
The task would be straightforward:
Decide whether the presidency still serves Somalia.
Examine alternative executive models.
Redesign the constitutional architecture.
Build institutions that distribute power instead of concentrating it.
Secure broad public legitimacy before implementation.
This would be constitutional renewal—not constitutional improvisation.
Stop Searching for Better Presidents
Somalia has spent generations searching for the perfect president.
It has searched in civilians.
It has searched in generals.
It has searched in Islamists.
It has searched in technocrats.
It has searched in returning diaspora.
The search has produced disappointment after disappointment because the problem was never merely the occupant.
It was always the office.
A constitutional system that repeatedly manufactures institutional crisis deserves fundamental redesign, not cosmetic repair.
The boldest reform Somalia could undertake is not electing another president.
It is abolishing the presidency altogether.
Only then might politics cease revolving around personalities and begin revolving around institutions.
Only then might citizenship become more important than clan arithmetic.
Only then might Somalia finally replace the politics of rulers with the politics of governance.
The presidency has had its historical opportunity.
It failed.
Now the Republic deserves something better.