The Politics Of The 1969 Somali Coup

Matters came to a head with the election by the assembly of a new President of the Republic in 1967. The existing Hawiye incumbent was supported by the Darod Premier and opposed by the latter’s Darod pre­decessor, Shirmarke, who was now campaigning in alliance with the Iraq ex-leader of the S.N.C. This experienced politician, Mohammad Haji Ibrahim Egal, had in fact recently joined the S.Y.L. and was one of those sidings with Shirmarke in opposition to the Premier, Abdirazaq Haji Husseyn. In the event, Shirmarke turned the tables on his opponent and was elected President by the national assembly. So the 1964 Govern­ment resigned and Egal was summoned to replace it with a new team of ministers.

These developments greatly reduced the significance of the S.N.C. For the first time a northerner was Premier and his Government, like all its predecessors, was built on the tacit principle of clan balance. The Dir—Isaq—Hawiye alliance represented by the S.N.C. was now decisively shattered with the continued division of the Darod bloc within the S.Y.L.

Indeed, these large groups had temporarily lost their significance in party politics, and effective allegiance had fallen back to the smaller constituent lineages which were now combining across their parent divisions. Apparently, the hostilities and animosities between the smaller lineage groups, which had necessarily been suppressed to some extent in the situation of wider national solidarity against Ethiopia and Kenna, had now come again to the fore.

This re-emergence of small group particularism coincided with growing disillusion amongst the urban elite about the effectiveness of the methods which had hitherto been applied in the campaign to secure the missing Somali territories. So arguing that if he could first secure the friendship of Ethiopia and Kenya, his Government would be more likely to meet with success in furthering Somali nationalist claims, Egal at once embarked on a policy of detente with his powerful neighbors.

Although this new policy initially aroused hostility at home, with the financial resources at his disposal the new Premier was soon able to secure a favorable balance of cautious support. While he was obviously vulnerable on this ground, his personal position vis a vis his main Dared opponent (the ousted Premier, Husseyn) was entirely secure. For since the President was now Darod, the Premier must of necessity belong to a different clan.

The elections of March 1969 confirmed all these trends. Despite new electoral regulations designed to discourage one-man lineage parties, 62 parties — mainly of this type fielded 1,002 candidates. This was a record even for Somalia. The S.Y.L. won 73 seats, and the emasculated S.N.C. only 11. The Digil and Rahanweyn, whose cohesion had been pro­gressively eroded through their members’ increasing participation in other parties (especially the S.Y.L.), gained only three seats for their local party, the H.D.M.S.

With such intense competition involving an unprecedentedly large number of senior civil servants who had resigned from their posts to enter the lists, electoral expenses had been unusually heavy, and those who had succeeded in gaining a seat in the national assembly were naturally anxious to recover their costs at the earliest possible opportunity. In a nation where the annual budget runs at approximately £55 million, some candidates are estimated to have spent as much as £15,000.

So when the Darod President, Dr. Abdirashid Ali Shirmarke, again summoned his hag ally, Mohammad Haji Ibrahim Egal, to form a Government, and the latter selected a group of ministers representing the main clan blocs on the standard pattern, no one imagined that this new administration would founder for lack of support in the national assembly. Few, however, can have anticipated the enthusiasm with which the new Government would be received.

For at the very first meeting of the assembly, with the sole exception of Abdirazaq Haji Husseyn, all the opposition members crossed the floor to join the S.Y.L. Government. If this haste to demonstrate their unqualified support for Egal and his colleagues appeared unseemly to some critics, those deputies concerned could protest, not without truth, that they knew where the interests of their constituents (as well as their own) lay. Thus with surprisingly little fuss or clamor, the Somali Republic had, at last, joined the ranks of African one-party states.

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