President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, left, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey at the COP31 climate conference in Antalya on November 12, 2026, in a photo released by Villa Somalia [file photo]. Credit: Villa Somalia (@TheVillaSomalia) on X.
Talks called by Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud on the country’s next elections failed to open on Saturday after the main opposition alliance refused to attend a meeting at the presidential palace.
The Somali Future Council, which includes former president Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, former prime ministers and the leaders of Puntland and Jubaland, told the United States, Britain, the European Union and Turkey that it would not come to Villa Somalia but remained open to talks mediated by those four partners, Somali outlets reported. The council has said it needs binding guarantees so that any agreement produces results.
The presidency said in a statement on Saturday that contacts with invited parties were continuing and that the conference, planned for November 14 to 18, would open “soon,” without giving a new date. Two other groups, the National Unity Forum of former prime minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke and the Nabad iyo Nolol party of former president Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo, were reported to have agreed in principle on Friday night to attend, but Farmaajo’s spokesman, Abdirashid Hashi, denied the party had accepted. “We have not been informed about the location of the talks proposed by the president, so we still do not know where we are expected to go,” one source told Dawan Media.
Supporters of the government blamed the opposition. “Somalia has moved past being governed by the international community. Somalia belongs to Somalis; we cannot have foreign mediators stepping in every year,” Senator Abdihakim Moallim Ahmed told reporters at the upper house, according to Somalia Today.
The standoff deepened after the Supreme Court ruled on November 5 that President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s mandate expired in May, because the original four year terms, not a later extension, applied to those already in office, a case brought by Sharif Sheikh Ahmed. Puntland and Jubaland have rejected the government’s plan for direct elections, and the UN political mission in Somalia closed on October 31.
Early Sunday, the Somali Future Council, the main opposition alliance, asked the United States, Britain, Türkiye and the European Union to bring political actors from South West and Hiiraan into the proposed national talks, provided they commit to stop fighting, Dalsan TV and Dawan Africa reported on X.
Sources
- Dalsan TV on X, Nov 15
- Dawan Africa on X, Nov 15
- Somali Guardian, Somalia election talks called by president Hassan Sheikh fail to start as opposition boycotts, Nov 14
- Somalia Today, Somalia election talks fail to open as opposition stays away, Nov 14
- Hornlife, citing Dawan Media, Somalia: Opposition Council rejects Villa Somalia talks, Nov 14
- Garowe Online, Somalia: Opposition boycotts Hassan Sheikh’s talks over lack of international mediation, Nov 14
- Mereja Media, Somalia’s Supreme Court says Hassan Sheikh’s mandate expired and voids his chief justice firing