Do we like them?Do we like Hassan Sheikh Mohamud?
Our score: 4 out of 10. Real good work and a peaceful handover once, but a contested mandate, a record that is thin on the harm questions and old fund-misuse accusations keep him in the middle.
Hassan Sheikh was born in Jalalaqsi, in Hiiraan, studied technology at Somali National University and later did a master's in India. He stayed in Somalia through the civil war years while plenty of leaders fled, working in education and on clan reconciliation, including the reunification of Mogadishu after the 'green line' came down in 1997. In 1999 he helped set up the Somali Institute of Management and Administration.
He founded the Union for Peace and Development Party in 2011 and won the presidency in 2012. His first term was marked by accusations: a UN Monitoring Group report alleged a conspiracy to “steal public funds”, which his government denied, and Reporters Without Borders called that term especially harsh on the media. He lost in 2017 and handed over power peacefully, which counts for a lot in that part of the world.
On the harm test, I found no words of his own about LGBTQ+ people, women's rights, vaccines or the climate, and no conspiracy-theory slide. That is a gap in the record, not a clean bill. Somalia's laws on LGBTQ+ people are a state matter I couldn't source to him personally, so I'm not putting them on him.
The recent story is the fight over elections. He has pushed a one-person, one-vote system and ruled out going back to the clan-delegate model, while opposition figures and the Jubaland and Puntland leaders call for a process built on national consensus. By June 2026, forces aligned with the federal government clashed in Mogadishu with security personnel linked to opposition presidential candidates, and Puntland, Jubaland and then Southwest broke with Villa Somalia.
Where you land depends on how you read it. His supporters see a leader trying to bring Somalia to direct voting after decades of clan deals. His opponents, including former presidents, accuse him of trying to stretch his time in office, and he has not been shown to have agreed a deal that everyone accepts. Much of the 2026 reporting comes from Somali outlets and opposition voices, so treat the details with care.
The good stuff is real. He was the first Somali president to win office twice, he built his name on education and peacemaking rather than guns, and he hasn't escaped the job's dangers: in a 2025 BBC interview he said al-Shabab had tried to kill him. He also takes credit for bringing Somalia to debt relief in 2023, though that process started under earlier governments.