Djibouti is a country in the Horn of Africa bordered by Somalia to the east, Eritrea to west and the Red Sea to the north, Ethiopia to the west and south, and the Gulf of Aden to the east.
The politics of Somalia takes place in a framework of federal parliamentary republic. According to the Constitution of Somalia, the President of Somalia is head of state, and Prime Minister as head of government who is appointed by the President with the parliament's approval. The country has a bicameral legislature, which consists of the Senate and the National Assembly of Somalia. Together, they make up the Federal Parliament of Somalia. In 2012, the Federal Parliament of Somalia was concurrently inaugurated, ushering in the Federal Government of Somalia, the first permanent central government in the country since the start of the civil war. With a new constitution and a new parliament representing diverse parties and factions, Somalia's political structure subsequently showed signs of stabilization.
Somaliland, officially the Republic of Somaliland, is an unrecognised country in the Horn of Africa. It is located in the southern coast of the Gulf of Aden and bordered by Djibouti to the northwest, Ethiopia to the south and west, and Somalia to the east. Its claimed territory has an area of 176,120 square kilometres (68,000 sq mi), with approximately 6.2 million people as of 2024. The capital and largest city is Hargeisa.
Puntland, officially the Puntland State of Somalia, is an autonomous territory formed in 1998 that became a Federal Member State. Puntland is located in the northeastern part of Somalia and its state capital is the city of Garoowe in the Nugal region. The region had a population of 4,334,633 in 2016. Geographically to the west, Puntland lays claim to the intra-46th meridian territories that were outside European colonial rule during parts of the Scramble for Africa period.
Mohammed Siad Barre was a Somali military officer, politician and revolutionary who served as the third president of Somalia from 21 October 1969 to 26 January 1991.
The Somali Democratic Republic was a socialist state in Somalia that existed from 1969 to 1991.
The Somali Revolutionary Socialist Party was the ruling party of the Somali Democratic Republic from 1976 to 1991.
The Somalia national football team, nicknamed the Ocean Stars, represents Somalia in international football and is controlled by the Somali Football Federation (SFF), a member of the Confederation of African Football (CAF). Somalia's first national team captain was Mohamed Shangole, while its longest serving captain has been Hasan Babay.
The Somali Republic was formed by the union of the Trust Territory of Somaliland and the State of Somaliland. A government was formed by Abdullahi Issa Mohamud and Muhammad Haji Ibrahim Egal and other members of the trusteeship and protectorate administrations, with Haji Bashir Ismail Yusuf as President of the Somali National Assembly and Aden Abdullah Osman Daar as President of the Somali Republic. On 22 July 1960, Daar appointed Abdirashid Ali Shermarke as prime minister. On 20 July 1961 and through a popular referendum, Somalia ratified a new constitution, which was first drafted in 1960. The new constitution was rejected by Somaliland.
The Justice and Welfare Party, sometimes translated as the Justice and Welfare Association, is the oldest political party in Somaliland. The party tends to be supported by people from the Garhajis clan and some sub-clans of the Isaaq.
Ahmed Mohamed Mohamoud "Silanyo" is a Somaliland politician who was President of Somaliland from 2010 to 2017. He is a long-time member of the government, having served as Minister of Commerce of the Somali Republic, and among other Cabinet positions. During the 1980s, he also served as the Chairman of the Somali National Movement.
United Nations Operation in Somalia I was the first part of a United Nations (UN) sponsored effort to provide, facilitate, and secure humanitarian relief in Somalia, as well as to monitor the first UN-brokered ceasefire of the Somali Civil War conflict in the early 1990s.
Sharif Sheikh Ahmed is a Somali politician who was the 7th President of Somalia from 2009 to 2012.
The Shifta War or Gaf Daba (1963–1967) was a secessionist conflict in which ethnic Somalis in the Northern Frontier District (NFD) of Kenya attempted to join Somalia. The Kenyan government named the conflict "shifta", after the Swahili word for "bandit", as part of a propaganda effort. The Kenyan counter-insurgency General Service Units forced civilians into "protected villages" as well as killing livestock kept by the pastoralist Somalis.
Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, also known as Farmaajo, is a Somali politician who served as president of Somalia from 2017 to 2022. He was prime minister of Somalia for six months, from November 2010 to June 2011. Mohamed is the founder and leader of the Tayo Party since 2012.
Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is a Somali politician who has served as the president of Somalia since May 2022, having previously held the office from 2012 to 2017. He is the founder and current chairman of the Union for Peace and Development Party. He was indirectly elected as President of the Federal Republic of Somalia on 15 May 2022, defeating the incumbent president Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed. A civil and political rights activist, Hassan was previously a university professor and dean at SIMAD University, which he co-founded.
The European Union Training Mission Somalia is a training operation for the Somali Armed Forces conducted by military officials from European Union states.
The 1969 Somali coup d'état was a bloodless military takeover of the Somali Republic on 21 October 1969, led by Somali National Army officers of the Supreme Revolutionary Council under General Siad Barre. After the assassination of President Abdirashid Shermarke in Las Anod, the Somali National Army under Barre's command stormed Mogadishu, seized key government buildings, and demanded the resignation of the country's leaders. The coup deposed acting President Sheikh Mukhtar Hussein and Prime Minister Mohammad Egal, ushering in a 21-year military rule under Barre and the establishment of an authoritarian government that lasted until 1991.
The 1995 Ethiopian Federal Constitution formalizes an ethnic federalism law aimed at undermining long-standing ethnic imperial rule, reducing ethnic tensions, promoting regional autonomy, and upholding unqualified rights to self-determination and secession in a state with more than 80 different ethnic groups. But the constitution is divisive, both among Ethiopian nationalists who believe it undermines centralized authority and fuels interethnic conflict, and among ethnic federalists who fear that the development of its vague components could lead to authoritarian centralization or even the maintenance of minority ethnic hegemony. Parliamentary elections since 1995 have taken place every five years since enactment. All but one of these have resulted in government by members of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) political coalition, under three prime ministers. The EPRDF was under the effective control of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which represents a small ethnic minority. In 2019 the EPRDF, under Abiy, was dissolved and he inaugurated the pan-ethnic Prosperity Party which won the 2021 Ethiopian Election, returning him as prime minister. But both political entities were different kinds of responses to the ongoing tension between constitutional ethnic federalism and the Ethiopian state's authority. Over the same period, and all administrations, a range of major conflicts with ethnic roots have occurred or continued, and the press and availability of information have been controlled. There has also been dramatic economic growth and liberalization, which has itself been attributed to, and used to justify, authoritarian state policy.
