President Osman and Prime Minister Hussen dedicated their long lives to the cause of the Somali people and to a democratic political order. My last con- versation with Hussen, a few weeks before he returned to his Allah, made clear to me his unwavering conviction of the most appropriate way to Somali salvation as being a democratic political system anchored in professionally autonomous pub- lic institutions. At the age of ninety he was as spirited about the civic cause of the Somali people as when he was prime minister in his forties.

Less brutal and dominating than the Autocrat is the African political Prince. Unlike the Tyrant and the Autocrat, the Prince rules through private agreement with elements of the elite.

Osman finally enrolled in the course for nurse apprentices at the approximate age of nineteen. After five months of study, the twenty recruits took their first examination, and Osman had the best grade in his cohort. He was immediately appointed as an assistant nurse with a salary of 258 Italian lire. The colonial administration considered nurses as part of the military, although they were unarmed, and supplied them with uniforms.

Osman desired to continue his education but was unable to do so since colonial authorities limited native education to five years. Osman implored the nuns and the priests who ran the school to allow him to continue his studies, but they told him that further schooling for his kind was not possible. Restrictions on education ensured the production of servile Somalis. To add insult to injury, the authorities promulgated a new law that stipulated that natives must salute, in the style of the ancient Romans, any Italian they came across. The police publicly flogged any Somali who failed to perform such a humiliating act.

A mutual friend, Warsame Omer, had accused them of being anti- Italian and pro-Ethiopia. He reported to the police that the three men claimed that Ethiopia would win the war and occupy Somalia and advised everybody to convert their lire into gold. Warsame had a reputation for being unreliable, and people thought his accusation was groundless. There was concern in the town that military justice might precipitously condemn the three friends.

Osman divided Italian colonialists into three groups. The majority of the officers, like Cossu, sadistically enjoyed degrading Somalis and looked for every opportunity to callously abuse the hapless subal- terns. The second group, a very small minority of officers, reluctantly applied the policy but tried to soften its bite. Prato most exemplified the second group.

After establishing his business in Belet Weyne he traveled to Mogadishu in 1944 and met the men of the Somali Youth Club (SYC), which changed its name to Somali Youth League (SYL) in 1945, and became member number thirty. He also registered Abdullahi Issa Mohamoud as member number twenty-nine. Upon his return to Belet Weyne he told Sheikh Ali Jimale about the new organization, who subsequently joined. The SYC opened a branch office in Belet Weyne a year later and Osman and Jimale rotated as the SYC branch secretary.

The journey took three days over unpaved roads. The driver dropped them in Mogadishu in late afternoon, and they had to sleep in the street that night. Next morning they learned that their brother was no longer in Mogadishu, as he was one of the many Somali truck owners and drivers sequestered by the Italians for the war effort in Ethiopia in 1937.

Because of his ability to keep quiet about what he had seen, as well as his being a fast learner with a strong work ethic, his superiors valued his services. … Six months into Hussen’s job, Daniel and the secretary were transferred to Baidoa, and Hussen went with them. But within a few months Daniel was transferred to Nairobi, and although he wanted Hussen to come with him to Kenya, Hussen could not. Daniel rec- ommended Hussen for a job in the signal squadron, and Hussen accepted it in November 1943.

Hussen recognized the coded nature of the question as he was already influenced by the principles of SYL. He responded that he was a Somali, but this was not the answer Fitzpatrick expected. Fitzpatrick wanted to know Hussen’s pedigree to locate him in a political camp. … Hussen countered that they would have no difficulty, since he intended to do his assigned duties well. Fitzpatrick and his team, including Hussen, went on two missions, and all went well.

Hussen went directly from prison to the local blacksmith and asked him to make the sharpest knife possible. His intention was to finish this British co- lonialist. With the knife in his possession Hussen decided to provoke the com- missioner at work the following morning by hiding the station’s batteries.

Hussen had earned a lot of credit with people because he often sent messages for individual Somalis, including merchants who wanted to know the price of commodities in Mogadishu.

Within two hours of the attack on the SYL, fifty-three Italians and fourteen Somalis were slain, many others were injured, and much Italian property lay in ruin.

One of the features of the approved resolution was the establishment of a UN advisory council of representatives of three countries: Egypt, the Philippines, and Colombia. The function of the council was to oversee and advise the Italian administration. India and Pakistan were instrumental in inserting the role of the advisory council into the constitutional principles that governed the trusteeship order and insisted that the council maintain permanent offices in Mogadishu. This Pakistani-Indian foresight would well serve the SYL movement.

The Italian Officials who have come to Somalia, with the exception of the Chief Administrator and possibly a few others, are entirely Fascist minded; in fact they are all, with very few exceptions, old Colonial Servants who served under and for the Fascist regime.

Osman modified this strategy and often approached the administration to deal with the complaints. Only when the administration failed to do so did he let the CC send the petition to the advisory council and the trusteeship council. This shift in approach persuaded the Italian administrator to rethink his strategy of trying to break the will of the party.

These were the first elections of their type in the history of the territory, and all male adults over the age of twenty-one were eligible. The parties competed for 281 seats, and the SYL was victorious with 141 seats, vindicating its nationalist claims. HDMS, its closest rival, won only 57 seats.

Each Somali minister worked with an Italian advisor, whose presumed responsibility was to guide and train the minister. … These advisory positions were abolished at the end of the year.

Two months later he announced the formation of a new party, the Greater Somali League. A not insignificant number of SYL members from the rank and file shifted their loyalty to the new party, but all key personalities remained in the SYL.

The results of the assembly election were announced on March 11, 1959, and the SYL was victorious, claiming eighty-three of the ninety assembly seats. The SYL dominated the election partly because some opposition parties boycotted the election and HDMS and Liberale fielded candidates in only a small number of districts. Further, SYL candidates ran unopposed in many districts because other parties did not have the organizational capacity or resources to even register their candidates.

Although Osman was first on the list that the new president submitted, he came in nineteenth in the election and therefore was no longer a member of the CC.

The third momentous event was the challenge posed to colonial rule in French Somaliland. The French administration rigged the referendum in 1957, and this galvanized the liberation movement in the territory. Key leaders of the independence movement, Mohamoud Harbi, Ahmed Qumane, and Ali Udun, fled harsh French prosecution and went to Mogadishu, where they were guests of the SYL government.

The Somali liberation movement had unique democratic features, almost unlike any other in the African continent. The SYL as the leading liberation movement started its journey as a consensus-based party and over time devel- oped into an open democratic institution without an armed wing. This quality partly reflected precolonial Somali tradition of equality but also echoed the real- ity of the emerging postcolonial world. Another major feature of the movement was the absence of an overbearing leader who was considered indispensable for liberation. Osman and the group around him who led the SYL were as devoted to independence as any other African leader; however, they believed that the demo- cratic process was the essence of liberation and consequently practiced it. The combination of these two qualities set Somalia apart from other African nations and gave the country a chance to deepen its democracy after independence.

The creation of the Somali Re- public provided the foundation stone for establishing national institutions and public culture that would nurture those fundamental values. Despite the prom- ise that freedom ushered in, the nation faced many towering difficulties on its pathway to becoming an institutionalized democratic republic.

The three most daunting challenges the republic encountered were the inheritance of two con- trasting colonial systems of government, which required reform and integration; a general incapacity induced by an impoverished population of which more than 90 percent were illiterate; and a lumpen elite, most of whose members did not un- derstand how modern democratic institutions worked or the centrality of build- ing a public sphere that was autonomous from sectarian political projects.

The celebrations in Hargeisa and throughout Somali com- munities in the Horn of Africa went well as the blue flag festooned with a white star of the new republic was hoisted in the northern region of the Somali Repub- lic. Abdillahi Sultan Timaade, the leading nationalist poet from the small farming town of Gabileh, crafted an epic poem about the demise of colonial indignity, the rebirth of liberty, and the imperatives for responsible leadership and civic life

Unlike the competition for the post of Speaker, Aden Abdulle Osman was elected on July 5 without another candidate being fielded, with 107 votes. Imme- diately after the election, President Osman officially proclaimed the union of the two Somalilands.

These political machinations led to the election of Jama Abdillahi Qalib, from Berbera (Egal’s hometown), as Speaker of parliament. Jama’s election derailed Egal’s am- bition of becoming prime minister. … This meant that party lines had disappeared and most MPs sup- ported whomever they wished, regardless of political affiliation. Such develop- ment signaled instability in the political process, marked the absence of party discipline, and had far-reaching implications for the country.

It appears that President Osman did not select Abdullahi Issa or Mohamed Egal for three reasons. First, Osman and Issa both hailed from the Hiran region. Therefore, choosing Issa as prime minister was not politically feasible in a democracy. Second, President Os- man thought that because Issa had been prime minister for the previous four years of the trusteeship period it was time to give others a chance. Third, the pres- ident had little knowledge of Egal

There is no doubt that on the first day of July a full and lawful union was formed by the will of the people of the two territories through their elected representatives. However, the legal formali- ties had not been completed in time . . . [and] the matter was clarified seven months later by the adoption of the new Act of Union with retroactive effect as from July 1, 1960 for the whole of the Republic.

It was reported that five outstanding issues required attention and resolution before parliament could approve the union act. First, leaders of the former British Somaliland wanted to protect the contracts, which lasted until December 1960, of British military officers attached to the Somaliland Scouts. Northern authorities thought that the only way for them to honor the contracts was to keep the scouts separate from the Somali army until the end of the year. In contrast, leaders in Mogadishu wanted immediate integration of the two forces under the command of Colonel Daud Abdulle Hersi. Second, these sources re- ported that the North wanted to annex all agreements between the two Somali regions and their former colonial masters to the union act, but the South thought the union act was not the appropriate place to do so. Third, some members of the Northern leadership proposed that governments in both regions resign on June 30, but the Southern leaders suggested that the Southern government should remain as a caretaker government in consultation with the Northern authorities until July 7, when a new national government for the Somali Republic would be formed. Fourth, diplomatic sources reported that some elements of the Northern leadership proposed that the country should be divided into three administrative regions with similar population sizes, but the government in the South insisted on retaining the six regions in the trust territory and possibly dividing the North into two regions.

The dissidents assumed that if voters turned down the constitution, then the government would be discredited, and as a result, they could sail to power. Thus, their campaign was about portfolios in government rather than the substance of the draft constitution. Unfortunately, however, they politicized kin identity to such an extent that it enabled them to mobilize sub- stantial proportions of their respective genealogical groups to oppose the consti- tution.

In Wanle Weyne, the district commissioner, a former pro-Italian named Ibrahim Police, told the illiterate and poor public that anyone who voted no would be counted as Christian. Moreover, both district commis- sioners stuffed ballots into the yes boxes to such an extent that, in the end, the two villages had more voters than the resident population.

In the second round, Sheikh Ali advanced by two votes. Once this was pronounced, many thought Sheikh Ali would win the last and final round. Here is how the American embassy observers described it: … Sheikh Ali Giumale improved his position and obtained 61 to 59 for Aden Abdulla, one vote again being illegible. It was thought that Sheikh Ali Giumale would now go on to victory but on the third and final ballot, there was a slight shift in the sentiment and Aden Abdulla received 62 votes to 59 for Sheikh Ali Giumale after it was finally decided the deputy with the indecipherable handwriting was actually voting for Aden Abdulla.

The results of the first balloting were announced: 60 for me, 60 for Sheikh Ali, 1 vote annulled. It is clear that those who were fighting for me have been made fun of by at least 16 deputies, who deceived them. … The second bal- loting was disappointing for me: 62 for Sheikh Ali, 59 for me, but the third and last balloting had inverted the sides: 62 for me, 59 for Sheikh Ali! So I am reconfirmed President of the Republic for 6 years. God help me!

First, the population of Hargeisa and more broadly the Northern region did not come out in droves to support the coup, and what- ever little commotion was created in the city and the region petered out within a week. … Second, the majority of the rank and file of the armed forces in the region who aborted the coup were Northerners, which indicates that the concerns and grievances of the ringleaders were limited to that cohort. … The commitment of such a senior police officer to a national ethos demonstrated that he and other Northerners in similar posts did not share the kind of alienation the coup makers felt.

The former colonial pow- ers contributed 138.7 million Somali shillings (one American dollar was worth slightly over 6 Somali shillings) for the first three years of independence, which amounted to 31 percent of the national budget.

I hear that 60 officials were sent from Mogadishu to the Soviet Union, some of whom were expected here in Italy to study. It is evident that the government there has decided everything without me regarding the Soviet Union (arms, etc., etc.), purposely forgetting what I had recommended … Abdi- rashid [Sharmarkee] did not think that it is I who has to sign the agreement in the end

By general consensus this election was the fairest ever held in Somalia. The government press understandably hailed the event as spotless proof of Somali democracy in action. More accurately, high government officials including General Abscir, Police Commandant, are generally satisfied that it was well run and fraud held down.

In the short span of four years, 1960–1964, Somalia reached several positive political milestones. Many other countries in Africa drifted toward single-party order or succumbed to dictatorships (Africa saw twenty coups before 1969).

Nearly a majority of parliamentarians and the general population presumed that the sit- ting prime minister, who had overseen the successful parliamentary election in the midst of Ethiopian military aggression would be renominated.

Osman shared with him the wide consultation he had had regarding the state of the na- tion and the essential qualities he was looking for in the new prime minister. Without directly criticizing Sharmarkee, the president conveyed his decision not to renominate the prime minister. Osman stressed that the naming of the prime minister was the only occasion on which the president had a direct hand in the administration of the affairs of the state.

In that spirit, he wrote to the Speaker of parlia- ment informing him that the opposition should station their representatives in all polling stations for the duration of the referendum.

Within a week West Germany declared its willingness but only if the Somali government agreed to two preconditions. First, the candidates must have superior secondary school certificates with English as the medium of instruction.

Hussen, while vice president of the bank and not a government employee, could not access this credit, although he had some deposits in the bank from his dual income. During his tenure in the two ministries he did not build a home. Most Somali officials who built houses using bank credit rented them, rather than living in them as was required by the terms of the loan.

At the end, the committee was not decisive in its final output and simply said that the party would not oppose the president.

It dawned on Hussen there and then that the relationship between Osman and Sharmarkee had deteriorated, perhaps to a point of no political return.

The first material step to give substance to the agenda was the enactment of a decree that required all cabinet members to declare their assets and properties as required by the constitution.

It was as a result of this and similar other acts that Osman privately coined a nickname for the prime minister, “dahirie” (cleanser).

The groundwork for this project started in early 1962 when a UN-supported commission (known as the Establishment Commission) was set up to harmonize the inherited divergent bureaucratic systems of Italian and British Somalilands and reform it into an effective apparatus. The commission concluded its extended tenure, and its report was approved by the cabinet under Prime Minister Sharmar- kee. Because of the political pressure of the upcoming election, the report was set aside in 1963.

The task was difficult according to Hindle, because the civil service was more than doubled in the last two years of the UN Trusteeship Administration under Italy. Without further elucidation Hindle claimed that this was done for political reasons. As a result the GSR [govern- ment of the Somali Republic] has been saddled with the problem of an over- staffed civil service since independence.

Corruption led to general cynicism among the public and vitiated the stated aims of this and previous governments that the welfare of the people came uppermost. Most Somalis knew that the welfare of the officials came first.

Ironically, many young educated Somalis who had earlier assumed that they would quickly rise to the top of the civil service because of their education began to feel that the new government would require from them not only qualifications but also experience and performance for promotions. The case of Abdirahman Nur Hersi was an instantiation of inflated expectations and subsequent disappointments.

Hussen declared that he was not interested in the premiership after his term ended and that Egal, as a most prominent member of parliament, had a good chance for leadership if he joined the SYL. Hussen nominated him for membership, and Egal was voted in.

Because of the incomprehensible way these laws were voted down, I can assure you that my Government believes it absurd to go ahead with its heavy responsibilities in this dim atmosphere created by the National Assembly and, for this reason, my Government does not intend to remain in office since it is the government which should initiate and enact legislation.

Unfortunately, the Speaker of the assembly was not keen to take up the matter, and consequently the four MPs escaped justice, which ensured that all of them would vote for the Sharmarkee-Egal team.

Its advocates pushed the bill through, but the president was able to block it from becoming law. This was the second time he had returned such a law to parliament during his tenure.

June 10, 1967, marked the first time in modern African political history in which a democratically elected president was defeated in an election, gave up power with dignity, and walked away freely as an adored citizen.

Since they were aware that they had come to power by buying the votes of the majority of the MPs who elected them, they assumed other ambitious politicians might do likewise to drive them out of power. Consequently, the new leaders did not trust the very democratic process that brought them to power and went about changing it to perpetuate their authority, thus paving the way for authoritarian rule.

Under incredible pressure to include as many MPs as possible in his government, Egal finally made his cabinet lineup public. He retained Foreign Affairs in ad- dition to being prime minister. In all, the new cabinet was expansive and in- cluded seventeen ministers and ten deputy ministers for a total of twenty-seven. Such a cabinet size was much in excess of the last one. Ironically, Sharmarkee and Egal had been the most caustic critics of Hussen for marginally expanding his cabinet in 1964.

Finally, they came to an old man by the name of Omar Borey and pleaded with him to help them dislodge Hussen so that they could turn the party’s operations to suit their agenda. Egal and the team found they had struck a rock of integrity when the old man retorted, “If I do what you are asking me, then who will marry my daughter as I will be so disgraceful.”

Under the new rule civil servants running for parliament were forced to resign from their position rather than take the usual leave of absence as was the case in the past. Under this rule the regime intended to frighten talented civil servants unhappy with the destruction of the merit-based system into thinking twice before challeng- ing prevailing political order. Hussen proposed several amendments to the bill, knowing that his suggestions had no chance of passing, but parliament adopted the new law.

The government did not take any chances and immediately took the MP to prison without considering that MPs had constitutionally guaranteed immunity from prosecution unless parliament lifted that privilege. Another five dozen individuals were also jailed. Thus Bardda Cad became the first political prisoner in postcolonial Somalia.

Osman stood up to this man and told him that they might not be government leaders but that they were citizens, and the officer immediately corrected himself.

Shortly thereafter the coup makers claimed that Qorshel and Gabeyreh were engaged in a countercoup and hurriedly courtmartialed them. They were put to death, initi- ating a violent political order.

The judge called the name of each detainee, except the last six, and told him he was free to go.

Abu Sitah in- formed the prison officers that he wanted to know why he was in prison and that if the authorities did not provide an answer within three days he would walk out of prison even if they had to shoot to stop him. He told Hussen about his decision, and Hussen decided to join him. Hussen informed Osman, and Osman instantly joined them as well.

Barre told Hussen that Abshir was a CIA agent and delivered his reports to the Americans through his younger sister, who had been educated in the United States. Hussen could not hold back what he felt and told the general that Abshir was unjustly prosecuted by the previous government and that he did not deserve the three-and-a-half-year detention this government imposed on him.

Abshir was detained again and sent to the infamous prison named Labaatan Jiro, where he remained for over a decade. In an ironic twist of events, Abshir was incarcer- ated with Egal, whose government had prosecuted him.

The first fact was the necessity of principled organization united to defeat colonialism and forge a common national destiny. Second, SYL embodied such a strategy and made some headway in reversing decades-long Italian colonial social engineering to transmute genealogical dif- ferences between Somalis into state-sponsored political discord. The national- ist party attempted to transform Somali cultural commonalities into collective political institutions on a national scale.

The first is a warning to those who aspire to attain political leadership positions in the country. They ought to heed the reality that nearly all of those who have come to power since 1967 were either killed in office or impris- oned or had to flee the country once they were out of power. In contrast Osman lived on his farm along the Shabelle River or in his home in Mogadishu without fear for nearly forty years. No one ever threatened him, even at the height of the civil war in the 1990s.

While the opposition was using cash to buy votes from parliamentarians and promising them future ministerial appointments, Osman remained steadfast in opposing both tactics. In fact, he went further by refusing to accept cash gifts from wealthy Somalis who pleaded with him to take their money and use it to pay for the support of the MPs.

The five domains were British Somaliland, the British Northern Frontier Districts, French Somaliland, Italian Somaliland, and the Ogaden and the Reserved Area. British So- maliland and the British Northern Frontier Districts were under the United Kingdom. France controlled French Somaliland, Italy controlled Italian Somaliland, and Ethiopia controlled Ethiopian Somaliland (the Ogaden and the Reserved Area).

In the same spirit, Osman was a reluctant president.

Osman remembers this was in 1923 because of the arrival of the ship carrying the new Italian fascist governor of Somalia, Cesare Maria De Vecchi, one of the four leaders who marched on Rome with Mussolini, in the Mogadishu harbor. A year later, in 1924, the gover- nor brought Italian settlers to Somalia, mainly from his home region, Piedmont. Somalis along the Shabelle River were dispossessed and turned into bonded laborers for the Janale irrigation project. Other Somalis in the Upper Juba region were enslaved to toil in their land to enrich the colonial settlers.

October 3, 1935, was also the day Italy invaded and declared war on Ethiopia.

A policy of many colonial regimes was to remove troublemakers to remote regions where they could not influence others. The northeast region of Migiurtinia was such an area.

Many families who had been relatively wealthy lost their fortunes when they could not find labor. Furthermore, chiefs and their assistants threatened to ship some of these families to the plantation as slave labor unless they paid a bribe.

The monthly expense for SYL operations in 1948–1949 was 32,866 shillings (equivalent to 1,643 British pounds). The president and the secretary earned 3,600 and 3,000 shillings, respectively.

The Treaty of Peace with Italy provided for the disposal of the former Italian colonies of Somalia, Eritrea, and Libya. How they were to be disposed of was to be determined by an agreement between the governments of the United Kingdom, United States, USSR, and France. The treaty also stipulated that if the four powers failed to agree, then they would refer the matter to the UN General Assembly for recommendation.

The Italians flew two pro-Italian leaders, Islao Mahadalla Mohamed and Mohamed Sheikh Osman, of the Conferenza to Lake Success, New York, where the UN was holding a meeting, to petition for handing Somalia over to Italy.

Because of the events of January 11, 1948, the people of Mogadishu were not consulted.

The West was interested in retaining Italy as a member of their bloc; the Soviets hoped that Italian communists might win the forthcoming election, which would put Italy in the Soviet camp; and the Arabs were silenced by the resolution that assured Libyan independence. Somalia fell victim to this expedient coalition, and Italian return to the country for ten years was assured. The irony of the Soviet support for Italy is that the communists failed to win the elections, and the Soviets became one of the most critical voices against the Italian colonial administration in Somalia during the 1950s.

In the first forty-seven days after the British hand-over to the Italians more than three hundred Somali Youth League members had been thrown into prison.

This doctor worked under the British, although he supported the Italian agenda. During the British days the doctor received through the post cash that he distributed to pro-Italians in Baidoa. When Hussen took charge of the post office he noticed that the doctor was receiving bulky letters. After delivering several similar letters to the doctor Hussen became suspicious and opened one only to find wads of cash. Hussen sent the money to SYL headquarters and reported to them its origin. When the doctor failed to receive the weekly cash he realized that Hussen was the culprit but made no fuss about it. Instead he must have told his colleagues in Mogadishu not to send the money through the post.

The territorial council, which was established March 1951, held its inaugural meeting on July 29, 1951, under the chairmanship of the Italian administrator, Fornari. This council favored regional (tribal) rather than political party representation.

The post of president was provisional because the constitution of the country was not yet ratified by the population in 1961.

Somali governments during the first seven years of independence stayed true to the idea of neutrality, although that is not what the world powers wanted to hear.

[The] first cabinet caused consternation among the old guard, and excitement among young intellectuals. By Somali standards, it is highly unorthodox because the members were chosen without giving due weight to tribal and geographic balance. There was an effort to stress ability and education as criteria for holding office. Five members were from the north as against two northerners in the outgoing Sharmarke cabinet.

It is strange that [few people know me well] . . . after so many years in public life, nobody, I say nobody, as far as it seems, believes that I would have the courage to ignore the decision of the majority party, leaving Abdirashid [Sharmarkee] on the sidelines and entrusting Abdirazak [Hussen] to form a new government.

The new policy of allowing anti-government statements to be published in the government press and broadcast over government radio was initiated by the Prime Minister and his Minister of Information Yusuf Aden Boukah. Heretofore, political developments in the capital were largely obfuscated and often well garbled by the time they reached the country side via the grape vine.

The reform does not appear to have favored or spared any tribal segment of the population. The North may have gained a few positions owing to the better qualifications of its men. The army and other state organs may be next in line for reform. Abdirazak [Hussen] has demonstrated a high order of leadership in his effort to create a strong administrative framework for Somalia and he has a good chance to succeed in fending off eventual opposition moves in the Assembly.

The culmination of several actions limiting the autonomy of the police commandant included the hurried enactment by the GSR of a decree law on February 8 effectively transferring from the Commandant to the Minister of Interior the power to assign, transfer, and presumably promote all lower officials.

By May 1969, a little over a month after the election, the SYL commanded 121 out of the 124 seats in parliament.

In 1991 Badmah told Hussen that he had been sent by the national security chief, Ahmed Suliman Dafly.