Somalia’s Current Ruling Movement (Damul-Jadiid) Vows to Sack the 2nd PM less than a year

By: Haboon Haji Abdi, Buuhoodle –Somalia
Contact: habon.haji.abdi@gmail.com

The Damul-Jadiid leaders become irritated because; Prime Minister Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed made a mini-reshuffle aimed

simply to ban Islamic parties or exclude them from the political process, through the constitution” The prime minister reshuffled several cabinet members late Saturday, among them the minister for justice and constitutional affairs — a close ally of the president.

The Damul-Jadiid

(Islamic Brotherhood), which estimates its membership at up to a two thousand people, become Somalia’s strongest, organized political force until now. A political and social movement founded in early 2011, it won elections with Qatar financial support after President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed ended his term in 2012.
“The Damul-Jadiid movement immediately started to liquidate all its political opponents including the Chief justice Aideed Ilkaxanaf,” Abdullahi Ahmed from the opposition parties, told Somalimediaonlines, a free progressive news portal.

Since Damul-Jadiid

won the manipulated election, the movement has assassinated hundreds of its opponents in the hotels, streets and arrested hundreds more. President Hassan Sh. Mohamoud, Minister Abdikadir Farah and other top Damul-Jadiid leaders were last month charged with plotting with foreign governments against Somali constitution. The war on the oppositions is nothing but a prelude to eradicating all free democratic voices in Somalia,” read a statement by Damul-Jadiid opposition group’s spokesperson. “In the future for free Somalia they could face the death penalty”. He added.

Abdullahi said: “The only party that will benefit from the current Somali situation is the radical Islamist (Damul Jadiid, Al-Islah or Al-Shabaab) who will capitalize on the despair and disenchantment.
Damul-Jadiid is planning to manipulate the constitution and federal states composition to win the next election. Some observers have drawn parallels with Algeria, where a civil war erupted in 1991 when the army aborted an experiment with democracy because the Islamists looked set to win. A five Mogadishu radio stations were silent last month and its news editors still are in detention over a story that the government says blames its troops for new fighting with the opposition groups.

Members of the National Security Service took five Radios off the air and detained news Dalsan Radio editor Hassan Ali Gesey and three other staff members on Saturday, shortly after the station aired a story about fresh fighting between Ruhanta (Damul-Jadiid Security group) and Mogadishu tribal leader near Medina area. All of the station’s staff is still in detention.

One of the Ruhanta officer without hesitating said “there were limits to the right of free speech guaranteed by the constitution”.
“Anything that will expose the army, which is defending the constitution, to be vulnerable is against the national security,” he said.
The spokesperson of the Somali Journalists Association (SOJA), said “Journalists detentions were unconstitutional”. Somalia’s transitional constitution guarantees access to a lawyer in the event of detention by the authorities, and says suspects must appear in a court of law within 48 hours of being arrested. Early this month, the Committee to Protect Somali Journalists (CPSJ) said media rights have been seriously eroded in Somalia since the country plunged into hands of the ruling Damul-Jadiid party two years ago.

All this suggests that the Damul-Jadiid ruling party is going to have a very difficult time in today’s political climate. “We might witness another insurgency, an Algeria scenario. You might see the emergence of a violent faction in the ruling Islamist movement (Damul-Jadiid),” Abdullahi said.
“The opposition’s plan is to ban Islamic parties or exclude them from the political process, through the constitution” he adds.