Puntland 30 sano jir ah iyo Su'aasha Hogaaminta

By Abdisaid M. Ali

By 2028, Puntland will be thirty years old. Its first three decades were largely about constructing and preserving political order. Its fourth must be about what that order can produce. The founding generation established a functioning political community during one of the most difficult periods in Somalia’s modern history. The task now is to convert that inheritance into capable government, impartial institutions and a more productive economy.

Puntland emerged in 1998 through negotiation among communities and political actors who understood that a common political order required accommodation. Authority had to be bargained, competing interests recognised and disputes contained before they threatened the wider settlement. Successive transfers of presidential power reinforced these habits and made political succession one of Puntland’s most valuable achievements. Thirty years of statehood now demand a higher standard, with citizens entitled to expect reliable public services, wider economic opportunity and institutions capable of carrying the state across administrations.

Meeting that standard requires disciplined and responsible leaders supported by modern, talented teams. Good leadership combines inclusion, restraint, respect for the law and responsibility for results, while leaving institutions stronger. Elections therefore shape far more than who holds office. They determine how the state uses time, and five years can strengthen institutions, skills, infrastructure and production or leave another period of opportunity behind.

Seven Years and a Changing Political Method

The Deni presidency provides an important test of this transition. President Said Abdullahi Deni entered office in 2019 with considerable advantages. Puntland had an established political order, an entrepreneurial population, extensive diaspora networks, strategic ports and a record of negotiated political succession. Seven years offered substantial room to deepen that inheritance, yet a recurring feature of the period has been the movement of political disagreement into the security arena.

The confrontation surrounding the removal of Parliament Speaker Abdihakim Dhoobo-Daareed turned deadly in Garowe in 2019 . Two years later, disagreement over command of the Puntland Security Force escalated into armed fighting in Bosaso. The pattern became more serious in April 2022, when Somalia’s then Foreign Minister Abdisaid Muse Ali survived an assassination attempt in Gaalkacyo. Armed forces attacked the compound of senior traditional elder Yasin Abdisamad, where the minister and his family had gathered for iftar. One of the minister’s bodyguards was killed and Elder Abdisamad was seriously wounded, injuries that left him permanently disabled. The 2023 electoral dispute again brought armed mobilisation into a contest over political authority, while Gaalkacyo witnessed another armed confrontation involving Puntland forces in August 2026.

These episodes arose from different circumstances, but their recurrence is the larger point. Disputes involving parliament, security command, elections, political rivals and relations with Mogadishu have repeatedly acquired an armed dimension. Negotiation eventually returned, often after disagreements had travelled much further than Puntland’s political settlement could comfortably absorb. The deeper concern is the gradual securitisation of political disagreement.

Puntland’s historical political method rested on a different instinct. Its founders faced weak formal institutions and profound disagreements, yet bargaining and accommodation entered early because preserving the common order took precedence over immediate political victory. Authority carried recognised limits, and restraint became part of the practical machinery through which Puntland held together. Political culture develops through such repeated practice. Institutions that settle disputes teach political actors to rely on rules, while early negotiation gives restraint political value. Repeated recourse to coercion produces different incentives, drawing security institutions into political competition and gradually making practices once considered exceptional part of ordinary political calculation.

This cuts against the political logic through which Puntland was built. Security institutions derive their legitimacy from protecting citizens and constitutional order, while parliament, courts and electoral bodies exist to process political disagreement through law and procedure. Puntland’s institutional maturity therefore depends on strengthening these boundaries and keeping coercive power firmly within its constitutional purpose.

From Grievance to Agency

A second political habit deserves equa.