Opponent Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi, known as “Irro”, elected president of Somaliland

Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi, known as “Irro”, the leader of the main opposition party in Somaliland, was elected president of this breakaway region of Somalia at the heart of high tensions in the Horn of Africa, the electoral commission announced ( NEC), Tuesday November 19. With 63.92% of the vote, this 68-year-old former diplomat is well ahead of the outgoing president, Muse Bihi Abdi (34.81%), in power since 2017, and the leader of the Social Justice Party (UCID), Faysal Ali Warabe (0.74%), according to results announced to the press by the president of the NEC, Muse Hassan Yusuf.

Territory the size of Uruguay (175,000 km²) located at the northwest tip of Somalia, Somaliland unilaterally declared its independence in 1991. It has since operated autonomously, with its own currency, army and police. But it is not recognized by any country, which keeps it in a certain political and economic isolation despite its strategic location, at the entrance to the Bab Al-Mandab Strait, on one of the busiest trade routes in the world. , connecting the Indian Ocean to the Suez Canal.

Somaliland has been at the heart of a regional diplomatic storm for ten months after the signing of a memorandum of understanding with neighboring Ethiopia. The text has never been made public, but, according to the Somaliland authorities, it provides for the rental of 20 kilometers of coastline to Addis Ababa in exchange for formal recognition. Mogadishu denounced a « violation » of its sovereignty and has since moved militarily closer to Egypt, Ethiopia's great rival, in an escalation that worries the international community

Former diplomat (ambassador to the USSR and Finland) and president of the House of Representatives (2005-2017), “Irro” is not opposed in principle to this text, the content of which he says he does not know. At the head of his party, Waddani, he campaigned for change, after fourteen years of power of the Kulmiye party, notably appearing as a unifying figure against Muse Bihi, whom he accuses of having weakened and divided Somaliland .

In addition to the economic difficulties (inflation, unemployment, poverty, etc.), he criticizes it in particular for having fueled clan divisions, which led to the loss of part of the Sool region, in the south-east of the territory. After months of violent fighting against a pro-Mogadishu militia which left at least 210 dead and nearly 200,000 displaced, Somaliland forces withdrew in August 2023 from half of this region.