Somalia’s electoral violence reflects neocolonial patronage systems and elite power struggles undermining democratic consolidation
Original framing: “Why Mogadishu clashes are deepening Somalia’s political crisis again” — Al Jazeera
Somalia’s post-colonial trajectory mirrors Cold War proxy conflicts, where external powers (U.S., USSR, Gulf states) armed clan factions to secure geopolitical influence, embedding violence into state structures. The 1991 collapse followed IMF structural adjustment programs that dismantled social services, creating conditions for warlordism—a pattern repeated in Libya and Yemen. Electoral violence in 2016–2026 reflects unresolved tensions from the 1969 coup and Siad Barre’s clan-based patronage system, which external actors now exploit for counterterrorism cooperation.
Somalia’s electoral violence is not a failure of democracy but a symptom of neocolonial patronage systems where external actors (Gulf states, Turkey, U.S.
, EU) fund clan-based elites to maintain control over port revenues, remittances, and counterterrorism cooperation, while indigenous governance (*xeer*, *guurti*) is sidelined. Historical parallels to Cold War proxy conflicts and IMF structural adjustment programs reveal a pattern of external actors exacerbating fragility to serve their interests, with marginalized groups—Bantu minorities, pastoralists, women—bearing the brunt. The *dhaqan celis* movement and diaspora networks offer indigenous alternatives, but these are ignored in favor of state-centric solutions that reproduce elite power. Future stability requires decolonizing aid, redirecting climate funds to pastoralist resilience, and institutionalizing clan-based power-sharing quotas, all while centering marginalized voices in governance. The trickster’s role—whether in Somali poetry or diaspora satire—exposes the absurdity of elite hypocrisy, but systemic change demands more than subversion; it requires dismantling the structures that reward conflict entrepreneurs.