Somalia’s federal system is being tested on five fronts at once: the reach of federal authority, the legitimacy of constitutional amendments, security relations between Mogadishu and the states, fiscal federalism, and an increasingly disputed presidential mandate. None of these is a manufactured grievance. They are, as a matter of plain constitutional analysis, genuine problems of national statehood — and Puntland is now the state most directly forced to answer them.
Where Federal Authority Ends
The federal government in Mogadishu holds real constitutional powers, but those powers have limits. Foreign affairs cannot be used to bypass the Article 53 consultation requirement. National defense cannot become a blanket justification for military intervention in regional political disputes. Fiscal oversight cannot double as political punishment. Constitutional reform cannot let the center unilaterally redefine the powers of the Federal Member States. Universal suffrage cannot substitute for the federal agreement the system was built on. And parliamentary majorities cannot vote federalism itself out of existence. The task, in short, is separating federal capacity from federal domination.
Three Paths for Puntland
The study lays out three constitutional options open to Puntland:
Reconstructed federalism — the least disruptive path, requiring clear allocation of powers, rule-based fiscal federalism, constitutional protection of state autonomy, agreed security arrangements, limits on unilateral federal troop deployments, transparent resource-sharing, and an independent mechanism binding both Mogadishu and the states.
Confederation — if trust in conventional federalism has broken down beyond repair, common institutions could retain narrow functions (external defense, currency, citizenship, select foreign affairs, interstate commerce, international debt, maritime coordination) while most domestic authority shifts to the states.
Separation — the most consequential and least romantic option, raising hard questions on international recognition, citizenship, borders, public debt, currency, trade, security, airspace, maritime jurisdiction and the succession of federal assets and obligations. Its appeal, the study argues, will grow in direct proportion to how thoroughly the first two paths are foreclosed.
Seven Policy Recommendations
The study’s recommendations center on institution-building rather than confrontation: an independent federal dispute mechanism so neither Mogadishu nor Puntland is judge in its own cause; a negotiated federal security compact covering troop deployment, state consultation and command structures; formula-based, audited development financing insulated from political conflict; a higher amendment threshold for constitutional provisions touching state powers; a transparent legal accounting of the presidential mandate controversy, including the disputed applicability of the March 2026 amendments to the sitting president; a Puntland Constitutional Futures Commission to study the three options without predetermined conclusions; and continued strengthening of Puntland’s own rule of law and governance institutions, since its case for autonomy rests on demonstrating better governance, not merely more localized power.
The Eritrea Warning
The study draws a limited but pointed institutional parallel to the 1952–1962 Ethiopia–Eritrea federation, established under UN General Assembly Resolution 390(V) and dissolved by Ethiopia after a decade of eroded autonomy. The legal circumstances differ sharply from Puntland’s, and the lesson isn’t that Puntland is destined to repeat that history — it’s structural: when a political union depends on protected autonomy, dismantling that autonomy tends to radicalize rather than extinguish demands for self-government. The center centralizes to prevent fragmentation; the periphery reads centralization as proof autonomy can’t be trusted. Federalists become confederalists. Confederalists may become separatists.
The Bottom Line
Mogadishu holds legitimate national powers. Puntland holds legitimate constitutional autonomy. What Somalia lacks is a trusted institution to define the boundary between them. The study frames the stakes plainly: restore genuine federalism and Puntland has strong reasons to stay committed to Somali unity; let federalism become nominal and confederation becomes the rational response; foreclose both federalism and confederal accommodation, and separation becomes progressively more attractive. The greatest threat to Somali unity, the study concludes, may not come from those demanding autonomy — it may come from a center that, in the name of strengthening the state, dismantles the constitutional bargain that makes the state worth belonging to.
