Former Somali president Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed Farmaajo has urged President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud to seek a negotiated agreement over the country's disputed electoral framework, adding another senior political voice to a confrontation that already involves the federal government, Puntland, Jubaland and opposition groupings. Somalia Today and Hiiraan Online reported on September 24 that Farmaajo made the appeal in an open letter.
The intervention comes as Somalia's political institutions face overlapping disputes over constitutional change, the design and timing of national elections, and the relationship between the federal government and federal member states. Farmaajo argued that the country was entering a sensitive period shaped by political disagreements, security threats, economic pressure and regional tensions. He called for a national dialogue based on compromise and for an electoral arrangement broad enough to command acceptance among the main political actors.
The proposal should be understood as a position advanced by a former president and opposition figure rather than as a settled description of Somalia's constitutional requirements. The federal government has pursued its own electoral program and constitutional amendments, while opponents have challenged the process, its legal basis and the degree of consensus behind it.
Election rules remain the central institutional dispute
Somalia has spent much of the post-2000 period using indirect systems in which selected delegates and assemblies play a central role in choosing national representatives. Successive governments have promised movement toward direct voting. The current disagreement concerns who sets the rules, which institutions administer the process, what constitutional authority supports it and whether major federal member states and opposition groups accept the framework.
Somalia Today reported that previous talks between the federal government and the Somali Future Council did not produce a comprehensive settlement. Farmaajo's Nabad iyo Nolol movement has held separate discussions and supports a transition away from indirect voting, while proposing its own model for direct elections and arguing that the governing rules and administrative arrangements require broad agreement.
That distinction matters because support for direct voting does not itself resolve the institutional dispute. Political actors can agree on the objective of one-person, one-vote elections while disagreeing sharply over sequencing, electoral bodies, constituency design, constitutional amendments and the authority of the federal government to proceed without wider agreement.
Puntland's UN letter has raised the stakes
Farmaajo's appeal coincides with Puntland's decision to take its dispute with Mogadishu to the United Nations Security Council. PUNT NEWS reported earlier on September 24 that Puntland had asked for inclusive dialogue, more direct international engagement with federal member states, security cooperation and renewed restrictions on weapons entering Somalia.
Later reporting quoted Interior Minister Ali Yusuf Ali Hosh rejecting the portrayal of Puntland contained in that letter and arguing that it did not represent Puntland society. He also alleged that foreign actors had helped prepare the document. No evidence was provided in the report for that allegation, and PUNT NEWS has not independently verified it. The exchange nevertheless shows that the constitutional dispute is no longer confined to technical arguments about election procedures. It is increasingly entangled with questions of federal legitimacy, external engagement and security authority.
Relations between Mogadishu and Jubaland have also deteriorated, while Puntland suspended recognition of federal institutional changes in 2024 pending a negotiated constitutional settlement. Those disputes make any national election framework harder to implement uniformly across the federal system.
Farmaajo also points beyond the election calendar
According to Somalia Today, Farmaajo criticized the lack of progress in talks with Somaliland and called for renewed attention to national dialogue beyond the immediate election dispute. Somaliland's political status remains contested: its authorities claim independence, while Somalia's federal government maintains the country's territorial unity. Any discussion of renewed talks therefore involves constitutional and diplomatic questions separate from the mechanics of federal elections.
The former president's letter also places political compromise against a difficult security backdrop. Somalia continues to confront al-Shabaab, relies on a security transition involving the African Union Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia, and faces recurring disputes over how international security assistance should be distributed among federal and regional institutions. A prolonged electoral confrontation can absorb political attention and complicate coordination even when it does not directly determine battlefield outcomes.
The test is whether dialogue produces rules that institutions will use
Open letters by former presidents can increase political pressure without creating a negotiating mechanism. The practical significance of Farmaajo's intervention will depend on whether the federal government, federal member states and opposition coalitions return to structured talks and whether those talks produce rules that the institutions responsible for elections can implement.
The present evidence does not establish that a new negotiation has begun or that the parties are close to agreement. It establishes that the dispute has widened: Puntland has internationalized its federal grievances, a federal minister has publicly rejected key elements of Puntland's position, and Farmaajo has called for a negotiated electoral settlement. The next institutional question is whether these separate political positions are converted into a common forum with an agreed mandate, timetable and decision rule.
Somalia's recurring electoral crises have often centered less on the abstract desirability of elections than on the authority to define the process. The September 24 interventions reproduce that pattern. Direct voting remains a shared aspiration among several actors, while the rules governing that transition remain contested. Until those rules acquire broad institutional acceptance, the election dispute will continue to operate as a wider argument about the structure and authority of the Somali federal state.