Somalia: Washington Resists the Transitional Federal Parliament’s Term Extension

By: Dr. Michael A. Weinstein

The politics of the territories constituting post-independence Somalia have been dominated in 2011 by the issue of the “transition” of “Somalia’s” Transitional Federal Government (T.F.G.) to a (permanent) government, as envisaged by the Djibouti Peace Process as happening in August, 2011.

Until the end of 2010, there appeared to be little concern on the parts of the actors involved in Somalia’s conflicts about the “transition.” Everybody knew that things were supposed to change in August, but nobody wanted to start the process, which was bound to be a hornets’ nest. After all, nobody had made any serious efforts to plan and/or make progress on implementing a plan. The actors had variant interests and had not yet reached anything approaching a consensus on planning and implementation. From the viewpoint of realist political analysis, a rational political actor would look at the conditions – hyper-fragmentation and civil war in “Somalia,” no process of “transition” or preparation for it – and conclude that extending the T.F.G. and the Transitional Federal Parliament (T.F.P) would make sense. That is what happened when the T.F.P.
unilaterally decided to extend its term in office for three years. The Horn of Africa sub-regional organization the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (I.G.A.D.), under Ethiopia’s guidance, had inspired the T.F.P.’s move in the first place; the African Union and the European Union accepted it with varying degrees of reluctance.

Only the United States was determined to reverse the T.F.P.’s decision rather than work within it. By trying to reverse the T.F.P.’s decision, Washington has stopped any progress toward “transition” in its tracks: it has diverted efforts to the problem of who will manage the “transition” rather than doing anything to make the transition. Through March, 2011, the “transition” lost a month through Washington’s attempt to claw back control over the transition (something it never actually had and had never applied sufficient resources to achieve) and the T.F.P.’s and I.G.A.D.’s push back against Washington, while the other players have looked on and the United Nations diplomats have been short-circuited by international disagreement.

Washington’s lone-wolf position was evident at the United Nations Security Council’s “open debate” on Somalia on March 8, when alone among the stakeholders it called for the reversal of T.F.P. term extension and stated its unwillingness (refusal) to accept it. On March 15, U.S. Undersecretary of State Johnnie Carson reiterated the position in an interview with the All Africa website. The problem was that the refusal to accept term extension did not come along with an alternative plan that would prevent a “power vacuum “ (as I.G.A.D. predicted) from opening up in August if the T.F.G./T.F.P. were dissolved without a structure to take its place, much less a “permanent” structure.

By March 15, the game of clawback-pushback had reached a stalemate. Washington remained adamant in trying to claw back control over the “transition;” but was getting nowhere; the T.F.P.-I.G.A.D. had succeeded in pushing back, but had not converted their adversary. It was up to Washington to move and put something behind its rhetoric or let the term extension stick and join the pack.

A closed source in the Horn of Africa provides intelligence that indicates that Washington is making its move by inspiring the U.N. to hold a conference on Somalia’s future after the transition in Nairobi on April 7.  The “consultative” conference would bring together Somali factions and stakeholders to reach some sort of consensus to bring to the donor-dominated International Contact Group meeting in Kampala in mid-April. Then Washington’s plan would be launched.

Washington’s Plan for Transition

According to the source, Washington’s plan, which it will attempt to press through U.N. Special Representative for Somalia Augustine Mahiga, concedes a one-year extension for the T.F.G./T.F.P. with the election of a new leadership in August, 2011. From then on the plan takes off into the realm of political fantasy. After August, the T.F.G. would keep its name, but would be - what it is fashionable to call now – a “new political dispensation.” It would work under a new “interim constitution” that would replace the present Transitional Federal Charter (T.F.C.) and would be compounded out of the Djibouti Constitution (the recent draft constitution formulated by an independent Somali commission assisted by the U.N.), the T.F.C., and past Somali constitutions. The present constitution commission would be dissolved and a new one that would be more “representative”/”inclusive” would be established and would come up with a permanent constitution to be put into effect in August, 2012. Then a 
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