Prime Minister
Somali Promotion Agent
Somali Region
Ethiopia’s Somali region arguably benefited more from the change of government in 2018 than any other region. The federal removal of a brutal existing regional President in August 2018 saw a new President appointed, who had returned from exile in Kenya, amidst a wave of euphoria. Also returning were the leaders, rank and file and long-exiled supporters of the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), who had left government and returned to armed struggle in the 1990s, when their call for a referendum on independence was quashed. Reform of a brutal regional special police force was promised, and diaspora Somalis flocked to do business in a newly deregulated economic space. Trade, including contraband, boomed, and the Ethiopian Somali region’s natural international linkages with the rest of the Somali arena flourished – perhaps for the first time in Ethiopia’s modern history.
The optimism of 2018 and 2019 has given way to greater concern and cynicism as elections were postponed in 2020,445 and then in the run-up to polls planned in May, then in June 2021, and postponed again in regional constituencies to 6 September Opposition parties, including but not only the ONLF, have all voiced complaints of harassment and intimidation. Relations between the regional government and NEBE also suffered when NEBE decided not to hold elections in the 30 polling stations in 8 kebeles affected by Afar-Somali conflict. There have been controversies over the number of registered voters in the first half of 2021: voter registration was suspended in 7 constituencies amidst allegations of systemic irregularities. Problems escalated to such a level that in April 2021 three very diverse opposition parties (ONLF, Ezema, and the Freedom and Equality Party), and independent candidates in the region took the unusual step of writing a joint complaint. The Somali region held the most free and fair election in Ethiopian history in the early 1990s, and it remains to be seen whether this entirely exceptional event can be repeated.
A very serious period of conflict along the borders between the Somali region and neighbouring Oromia killed hundreds and displaced more than a million over the period from 2016 to 2018. A long-disputed process of attempted border demarcation between two regions of pastoral communities with long histories of movement and inter-mingling offered fuel for political elites to ignite violence, in the period of heightened ethno-national consciousness and political contestation that brought the new PM to power. Here again, “Inter-ethnic strife [was] driven by interests that emanate from other places, namely regional and national elites.” New governments in both regions, with new sets of interests, have been at pains to restore positive relations since 2018. Conflict has subsided, although many remain displaced, and ongoing resource claims are likely.
More recently Afar-Somali conflict re-erupted in relation to the three towns on the main Djibouti road which are within the borders of Afar but long claimed by the Somali region: Gedamaitu (Amibara), Undufo (north in Gewane) and Adaitu (north again in Mille). The towns are potentially lucrative entrepôts for informal Somali trade and contraband to access the asphalt highway and Ethiopia’s highland markets. As informal trade in the Somali region has boomed since the new regional government was established in mid-2018, the commercial significance of the towns has returned, and violent conflict with it. “About a hundred civilians” were reported killed in April 2021, primarily in Gewane, and national elections were quickly excluded in the 30 polling stations in the disputed areas. Pressure over the AfarSomali border and conflict with Somalis in Shinille zone is longstanding, and Afar see a historical pattern of Somali encroachment towards the Awash river: also a matter of vigorous – and violent - dispute.
At the end of June 2021, it remained to be seen whether (and when) the election could be held in the Somali region without recourse to violence. The balance between the large Ogaadeen clan, and other smaller clans in the region has often influenced politics in the region (and drawn in meddling from Addis Ababa): since 2009, regional government and the ONLF have both been led by Ogaadeen politicians, and this remains the case in this contest, a change in the constellation of the cast of protagonists notwithstanding. The political dispensation amongst non Ogaadeen clans may again prove crucial to the formation of a new regional government post-election. In the wake of polls elsewhere, many observers at the end of June 2021 considered the outcome of Somali region elections in September increasingly unlikely to influence the national outcome, but this remains to be seen.
