Madobe, Haaf isolated as Coalition of the Willing takes shape

By T. Roble

The week-long talks in Garowe may have failed to produce joint agreements but it gave birth to a new coalition of three Federal Member States- South West, HirShabelle and Puntland as Galmudug’s Ahmed Haaf and his Jubbaland comrade Ahmed Madobe hang on the fringes amid upcoming elections and distaste for the Federal Government.

Puntland’s Sai’d Deni and his two counterparts, Abdiazi Lafta-Green (South West) and HirShabelle’s Mohamed Waare Sunday evening unveiled their new forum which they said aimed at providing a platform for engagement among themselves and with the Federal Government.

The statement identified seven key areas the new partnership seeks to address. They included; working for the unity of Somalia in collaboration with the Federal Government based on the constitution, justice, law and order.

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The three administrations, the statement noted, will also work in the implementation of federalism in cooperation with the Federal Government. To entrench the functioning of the coalition, the three said, a technical committee will be formed tasked with addressing federalism, security, trade and development of institutions in addition to cooperation of humanitarian and IDP issues.

The three leaders who maintain good relations with Mogadishu also agreed on cooperation in areas such as security, counter-terrorism and information sharing on criminal networks.

COALITION OF THE WILLING

The formation of the new Coalition of the Willing (CoW) formally buries the Council of Inter-State Cooperation (CIC), a platform which became a cracking headache for the Federal Government. Its key proponents were former South West and Puntland presidents, Sharif Sheik Adan and Abdiweli Gaas respectively and current Jubbaland president Ahmed Madobe.

HirShabelle’s Waare jumped ship last October and allied himself with the Federal Government. The exit of both Adan and Gaas dealt a blow to CIC and introduced FGS friendly leaders in South West and Puntland.

Madobe and Haaf both who dismissed the Garowe conference as a failure are now on their own as the Federal Government inches closer to bringing to the fold all the Federal Member State leaders.

Madobe is facing an election in August while Haaf who should also be facing the same in July has been pushing for term extension to 2021 claiming the post Djibouti unity constitution provided for the beginning of a new term starting March 2018 for four years. But the Federal Government has insisted elections must take place July in accordance with the founding constitution.