The Politics Of The 1969 Somali Coup

The first two years of the Republic’s life were consequently marred by many signs of northern discontent and disaffection. The most dramatic was a short-lived and unsuccessful coup staged by a group of young Sandhurst-trained officers. By 1963, however, the north had come to accept the Republic as an established framework within which to pursue its interests.

The political parties, which had become more and more out of touch with current political realities, now adjusted to this situation. The uneasy S.Y.L.—S.N.L.—U.S.P. alliance fell apart with the formation of a new party called the Somali National Congress. This was led jointly by a former Isaq minister and a prominent ex-S.Y.L. politician of the Hawiye clan. The U.S.P. was disbanded, its members joining either the S.N.C. or the S.Y.L. – some also joined forces with another, more radical new party called the Somali Democratic Party.

This alteration in party alignments was highly significant. The formation of the S.N.C. on a basis of /sag, Hawiye, and Dir elements, represented a new attempt to capitalize on the close genealogical rela­tionships of these three groups in opposition to the Dared-led S.Y.L. It signified the collapse of the northern—southern regional political axis and indicated the common commitment of all the political leaders to the Republic as a unitary state. It demonstrated that the Isag and Dir of the north now recognized that they shared common interests not only with the southern Dir but also with the Hawiye.⁶

This was all the more striking in that, prior to the formation of the independent state there had been no effective contact at all between the hag and northern Dir on the one hand, and the Hawiye of the south on the other. The viability of this new pattern of party allegiances was put to the test in the general elections of 1964. These coincided with a period of maximum nationa­list fervor when the Republic’s perennial dispute with Ethiopia had flared into open warfare. Twenty-one parties and 973 candidates con­tested the elections which the S.Y.L. won by gaining 69 of the available 123 seats. The S.N.C. won 22, the S.D.U. 15, while the H.D.M.S. secured only 9 seats.

The new S.Y.L. Government formed after these elections had far-reaching implications. The previous Premier was replaced by another leading Darod politician but from a different lineage. Again the new Government contained northern as well as southern ministers, and representatives of all the main Somali clans. But the split in the ranks of the Darod leadership of the S.Y.L. had profound consequences, which were all the more embarrassing to stable administration since they existed within the government party itself.

Here it is necessary to appreciate that, except on special issues, voting in the assembly was usually conducted by secret ballot. This allowed individual deputies great freedom of maneuver and immense power, severely hampering the maintenance of party discipline. Members of the assembly who had promised their support for the Government might, in fact, not give it if they found sufficient encouragement to do otherwise. The Government of 1964 was severely harassed in this fashion and, despite a number of cabinet changes, actually resigned in 1966 following its defeat over an unimportant issue.

With the encouragement of the President, however, it was reappointed, and a determined effort was made to patch over the party’s persistent internal cleavages. But the respite which this brought was short-lived. The fact that it now counted 105 members in the assembly (following defections from other parties) paradoxically only compounded its many difficulties.

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