Cumar

[Afyare A. Elmi @afyare_elmi]

"History repeats itself," as the saying goes, and Somalia's current electoral debate shows this. The discussion has circled back to where it was in 2020. At that time, the government, under President @M_Farmaajo, proposed an electoral bill advocating a "one-person, one-vote system based on closed-list proportional representation and one national constituency." This bill was enacted by the council of ministers and sent to parliament.

A parliamentary committee, led by Abdullahi Arab, was then tasked with reviewing the bill and presenting an alternative. The committee proposed an electoral system based on 4.5 clan constituencies, utilizing a first-past-the-post electoral system.

Fast forward to 2024, and the current government of President @HassanSMohamud has effectively adopted Farmajo's 2020 model, passing it through parliament and calling it a "one-person, one-vote system." Conversely, the opposition is now championing the alternative model that the parliament passed in 2020, referring to it as "direct election."

However, neither of these proposals is a "one-person, one-vote" system. Both remain indirect as long as parliamentary seats are allocated to clans with differing populations. Our debate on political transition has, regrettably, not advanced an inch since then. The only change has been a reshuffling of politicians, with some moving from government to opposition and vice versa.

Here is the link of a paper I wrote about the controversy in 2020 as well https://t.co/rg8IYMwgMf

The big lesson here is that an active politician should never write the rules.

Soomaali

Siyaasaddii tiiha iyo is-daba-wareega ahayd ee Soomaalidu waxay soo fariisatay halkii ay joogtay 2020.

Berigaas Madaxweyne Farmaajo ayaa la yimid hannaan uu ku magacaabay qof iyo cod oo ku saleysan hal deegaan doorasho iyo nidaama liiska xiran ee isku-dheellitiran.

Baarlamaankii berigaas joogay waa ka hor yimid, waxaana loo saaray guddi uu Cabdullaahi Carab hoggaaminayey oo keenay nidaam doorasho ku salaysan beelaha iyo horreeyaa guuleysta.

Dowladda maanta joogta ee Madaxweyn Xassan Sheekh waxay qaadatay nidaamkii Madaxweyne Farmaajo keenay 2020, wayna sharciyeysatay. Wax macna lehse kuma kordhin. Mucaaradka maanta joogana wuxuu qaatay nidaamkii ay guddiga baarlamaanku keeneen 2020 ee la sharciyeeyey waqtigaas.

Waxa is-baddalay oo kaliya in shaqsiyaad dhinaca mucaaradka jiray berigaas ay u wareegeen dhanka kii dowladda, iyo in kuwa dhanka dowladda markaas jiray ay u wareegeen dhanka mucaaradka. Wax aragti cusub ah oo doodda ku soo kordhay ma jiraan.

Waagaas labadii hab waa la tuuray oo doorasho dadban baa lagu heshiiyey. Waxaanse ka qoray cilmi-baaristan https://t.co/rg8IYMwgMf

Casharka laga qaadanayo waa in aan siyaasi xukunka raba uusan asagu samaysan xeerka lagu kala hagayo doorashada.

[Sara Al-saeed @saraalsaeed91]

Halaib may be politically contested—but has its legal case ever truly been heard? Read the full article below ⬇️
https://t.co/W4ZnIO5HSO

[The Elephant @theelephantinfo]

Mahmood Mamdani, in his book Neither Settler nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities, troubles conventional narratives of the origins and the character of the modern nation-state. He argues that the narratives beginning with the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia have often described the modern nation-state as a tolerant and secular political institution that overcame European religious strife are incomplete. Rather, Mamdani notes that the modern nation-state and the colonial state were co-constituted in the 15th century by three intertwined processes: ethnic cleansing (the Reconquista), overseas colonization (the Americas), and the enslavement and displacement of Africans that created permanent political frameworks for exclusion and violence.
https://t.co/O6Ca2ysZlx

@jkobuthi @ReginaldOduor @MwangiGithahu @MohanAkal @wmnjoya @m_ogada @WMutunga @KiamaKaara @TweetingPundit @realoyungapala @johngithongo

[Aziz Mahdi 🌍 @AMAGuudcadde]

There’s Somali proverb which says, “Tuuggu intaanad tuug odhan buu tuug ku dhahaa,” meaning that a thief will often accuse you of being a thief before you have the chance to expose them.

[Horn Review @HornReview]

The Greater Horn: Monthly Strategic Brief, Issue 12, June 2026

The Horn reconfigured: electoral mandates, intensifying conflicts & strategic competition.

Download full copy here: https://t.co/k7oQA4gNGc

[Ed Krassenstein @EdKrassen]

BREAKING: Two masked protesters have climbed to the very top of the Empire State Building in NYC to raise a banner that reads:

"When the power of love beats the love of power. The world knows peace."

I'm sure Trump will call them "Antifa" and try to send them to prison for life.

[Mohamed Gabobe @Mohamed_Gabobe]

Guled Hassan is the only #Somali in the notorious Guantanamo Bay prison. In 2004, he was abducted by the #CIA and tortured at multiple Black Sites, then renditioned to Guantanamo Bay, were he still remains without trial

After 22 years, he finally speaks

https://t.co/PWy097zZIg

[TRT Afrika @trtafrika]

Thousands of Somalis have gathered in Mogadishu to celebrate the country’s Independence and Unification Day on 1 July with a sense of patriotism and national pride.

The anniversary commemorates the day Somalia’s southern regions officially gained independence from Italy in 1960, and its unification with the north, which had been ruled by British colonialists

[Cameron Hudson @_hudsonc]

Shared Borders, Shared Destiny: Forging new security architecture among Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia https://t.co/ZEWkgbmiDQ

[Abla عبلة @dervishconan]

Somalis out here crying about low quality junk in the shops while still defending President HSM? Quick friendly reminder:
The woman in charge of consumer protection and product safety standards is Mrs. Hawo Ahmed Hassan yep, the president’s own daughter in law. Zero experience, zero qualifications, but hey, family first! She got the top job at the Somali Bureau of Standards in May 2023, because nothing says “I care about your health” like putting your unqualified relative in charge of what poison gets sold to the public.
This is just a small example of how HSM is definitely ruining your lives and lowering the quality of everything. Pure merit based leadership, right? 😂
Totally normal. No nepotism here. Move along.

[Horn Review @HornReview]

From Al Fashaga to Mandera: Why the Greater Horn’s Borderlands Are Becoming the Region’s Real Battleground

By Makida Girma

https://t.co/M7wthFfmLl

[Horn Review @HornReview]

Weekly Geopolitical Report | Issue 24

This week’s edition examines Ethiopia’s diplomatic activities, Sudan’s escalating conflict, Somaliland’s growing international engagement & the geopolitical implications of the Iran–Israel ceasefire.

Download here: https://t.co/jIFCdkxr4Z

[Aziz Mahdi 🌍 @AMAGuudcadde]

I am pleased to announce that ny translation of Étienne de La Boétie’s Discourse on Voluntary Servitude into Somali is now available and can be ordered from the publisher, @QalinmaalPubl.

This is the ninth title of my translations, a journey I’m pleased to be doing with you.

[K.Diallo ☭ @nyeusi_waasi]

On this day, we honor the legacy of the great Marxist intellectual and Pan-African scholar Dr. Walter Rodney, who was assassinated on June 13, 1980, in Georgetown, Guyana. It is also necessary to address and critically examine certain issues, as a number of accusations have recently emerged, either out of ignorance or for particular purposes. These claims involve the extraction of passages from his writings out of their broader theoretical context in order to portray his intellectual work as reducing the economic relations between Africa and Europe to a stark moral dichotomy between a “wicked colonizer” and an “innocent colonized,” alongside accusations that he generalizes historical responsibility for underdevelopment to Europeans as a whole.

When I read How Europe Underdeveloped Africa at the age of twenty, I did not feel that Walter Rodney was treating Europe as a form of “racial evil,” nor did I perceive him as holding all white people inherently responsible for the underdevelopment of the African continent. Rather, I understood from it a historical and materialist analysis grounded in an understanding of the global capitalist mode of production and colonialism as a worldwide economic and political framework that produced unequal relations between the colonial center and one of its colonized peripheries, namely our African continent. Nor did I feel that he presented Europeans as a homogeneous bloc; in several chapters he makes clear that the working classes and the poor in Europe were not the primary beneficiaries of colonialism to the same extent as the commercial, industrial, and financial bourgeoisie. From this perspective, his analysis departs from any racial or chauvinistic interpretation of history. At the same time, Rodney does not portray Africans as passive victims without agency or history; rather, he points to the existence of African kingdoms, economic systems, and societies marked by class contradictions prior to European intervention, and he also addresses the role of certain local African elites who benefited from the slave trade or colonialism, some of whom later became part of the comprador class after independence. These arguments demonstrate his distance from simplistic narratives that reduce history to a moral binary of a “wicked European” versus an “innocent African,” as he instead argues that underdevelopment resulted from an unequal global relationship that disrupted historical trajectories which could have led African societies along very different developmental paths.

When I finished reading the book, Walter Rodney appeared to me as a critic of colonialism, imperialism, and global capitalism rather than of European racial identity in itself. his analysis, despite its political sharpness, remained grounded in historical analysis rooted in political economy and social history rather than in emotional or racialized discourse. Rodney did not advocate national isolation or racial hostility; rather, his ideas were tied to an internationalist and Pan-Africanism project influenced by Marxism and global liberation movements.

[Rasmus Sonderriis @RasSonderriis]

Breaking News!!! A Marxist analysis from 1972 tells us that Ethiopia cannot do anything to help herself in the free market. This is based on the insight that development is not a product of decades of pro-enterprise economic policies and people building businesses in pursuit of self-interest, but is an automatic birthright that is sometimes being denied by means of trade. So this is why Ethiopia needs a fictional exchange rate and some good old communism. 🙄

https://t.co/x1thwfxftH

[The Elephant @theelephantinfo]

The politics of poverty is global rather than local. International financiers and foreign governments offer grants and loans to financially impoverished former colonies on terms that serve the interests of the financiers themselves. What is more, a vast proportion of such loans are misappropriated by the political elite of the recipient country through the inflating of the cost of the project, kickbacks, and even outright disappearance of funds that end up in secret foreign bank accounts, and yet the taxpayer must still service the loans. How do we break this cycle of exploitation and accountability?
Analysis: https://t.co/d3Re5mfSXs

@ReginaldOduor @FNasubo @karutikk @wmnjoya @MwangiGithahu @gathara @samar42 @Farida_N @jacobin @jkobuthi @realoyungapala @johngithongo

[Aziz Mahdi 🌍 @AMAGuudcadde]

In a time when Somalis face coordinated racist attacks, Artan’s involvement in the Cup as Africa’s top referee can challenge this distorted mischaracterisation. That’s partly why he must be reinstated; + he’s good at his job & we deserve matches officiated by capable professional

[Antifa_Ultras @ultras_antifaa]

What has happened at the #2026WorldCup over the last 48 hours:

• Swiss footballer Embolo's visa was put under review and he was only able to join his team days later.

• Iraqi national team player Aymen Hussein was held for questioning for nearly 7 hours upon entering the United States.

• The Iranian national team spent days dealing with visa procedures at the U.S. Consulate in Türkiye. The U.S. only allowed them entry on match days. Fifteen members of the delegation were denied visas.

• Omar Abdulkadir Artan, named CAF's Best African Referee of 2025, was denied a visa. Despite travelling to the U.S. with a diplomatic passport, he was refused entry and sent back. FIFA announced that he will not be able to officiate at the tournament.

• The South African national team arrived in the United States much later than planned because part of the delegation was not granted visas.

• Members of the Senegal national team staff were forced to remove their shoes and subjected to lengthy searches, sparking accusations of racism.

• The Uzbekistan national team was searched with bomb-sniffing dogs and the footage went viral in international media.

• Some Scottish supporters, despite being eligible to enter the U.S. visa-free under the ESTA programme, had their travel authorisations revoked just days before departure.

• Many supporters who had already bought tickets and booked accommodation had their visa applications rejected, resulting in financial losses.

[Horn Review @HornReview]

Power, Representation, Legitimacy, and the Collapse of Sudan’s Addis Ababa Talks

By Surafel Tesfaye & Tsega'ab Amare

https://t.co/bqHpuwvLNr

[REIS🇸🇴 @SUPERSOMALI252]

If you admire and support Omar Artan, remember the man who sacrificed his own life for
millions of Somali back home inclouding Omar Artan and for the football world: the legend Elman Ali Ahmed.

This man brought peace to an entire nation because of football.

I urge FIFA to take strong action. We, the Somali people, have sacrificed a lot to be part of football, and we will not bow down to terrorists, Zionists, or Nazis like Trump.

We deserve to be part of the FIFA World Cup.

Take responsiblity and bring law and order NOW !