Muse Bihi Abdi

President Muse Bihi Abdi looks to be succeeding in his campaign to neutralise the opposition and consolidate the extension of his own presidential term by two years regardless of the cost to his vaunted reputation for democracy (AC Vol 63 No 21 Clans take the fight to Al Shabaab)...

Muse Bihi is undermining the opposition by every means short of coercion...

Mahamed Abdi Gaboose for instance left politics in April 2021 to focus on his Haldoor private hospital but has come back in alliance with Muse Bihi...

In May Muse Bihi funded Mahamed Abdi's political association Barwaaqo ('Prosperity') whose purpose is to contest Abdirahman Mahamed Abdullahi Irro leader of Waddani party and one of the nine political associations...

Muse Bihi is also bidding for popularity by launching a military campaign to take over the Dhulbahante city of Boo'ame in Sool less than 70 kilometres from the Puntland capital of Garowe feeding domestic nationalistic sentiment and making it hard for the opposition to contest...

It went one better than the electoral commission and on 1 October voted to extend President Muse Bihi Abdi's term by two years and its own by another five years without going through the legally mandated consultation...

Nobody was surprised because they know Muse Bihi's determination to hang on to power but it did little for the image of the statelet's democracy...

Yet it is possible this might only give Muse Bihi more time to neuter the opposition parties and go to the polls with a weaker opposition to the one he faces today...

Neither does the timing suit Somaliland President Muse Bihi who is looking for ways of legitimising an extension of his time in office and is picking a fight with Puntland over the Buhodle area to show strength (AC Vol 63 No 1 Farmajo's dangerous trade-off)...

Somaliland President Muse Bihi Abdi's trip to Washington DC last month may not have resulted in an exchange of ambassadors but it looks as though the statelet will achieve de facto recognition recalling the 'dual-track' policy of the Barack Obama administration in 2010...

Somaliland wants US recognition – and a base Muse Bihi Abdi the President of Somaliland made a successful trip to the United States this month...

Somaliland President Muse Bihi Abdi is trying to overturn the rules restricting him to one presidential term...

The President of the Somali region Mustapha Mohamed a strong supporter of Abiy met with Somaliland President Muse Bihi in Hargeisa on 27 November...

Somalia announced it was cutting diplomatic ties on 15 December the day after Muse Bihi the leader of the semi-autonomous Somaliland arrived in Nairobi for talks with President Uhuru Kenyatta...

Somaliland President Muse Bihi Abdi is afraid that the strategic and commercial importance of Berbera port would plummet if Eritrean sanctions ended...

(Muse Bihi's protest against the move was also a friendly gesture towards Djibouti's President Ismail Omar Guelleh who is convinced that Muse Bihi only won Somaliland's elections last November thanks to financial support from the UAE through Abdourahman Boreh Guelleh's arch-enemy – AC Vol 57 No 5 Guelleh's court shame)...

The UAE reinforced its relations with Somaliland President Muse Bihi Abdi by announcing a new military training programme for Somaliland security forces...