MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — Residents of Somalia’s capital are set to vote Thursday in a controversial local election that marks the country’s first-ever one-person, one-vote poll since 1969. Analysts say it is a major departure from clan-based power-sharing negotiations.
The election of local council members, to be conducted across Mogadishu’s 16 districts, has been organized by the Somali federal government but rejected by opposition parties, which have called the election flawed and one-sided.
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People queue to cast their votes during the local election in Mogadishu, Somalia, Thursday, Dec. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)
People queue to cast their votes during the local election in Mogadishu, Somalia, Thursday, Dec. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)
Somalia's former deputy prime minister Mahdi Mohamed Guled casts his vote during the local election in Mogadishu, Somalia, Thursday, Dec. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)
A woman casts her vote during the local election in Mogadishu, Somalia, Thursday, Dec. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)
Somalia has for decades selected its local council members and parliamentarians through clan-based negotiations, and it is the leaders who later elect a president. Since 2016, different administrations have promised to reintroduce one-person, one-vote elections, but insecurity and internal disputes between the government and the opposition have delayed their implementation.
This will be the first major voting exercise overseen by Somalia's National Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, with up to 20 political parties fielding candidates.
The election will not determine the mayor of Mogadishu, who also serves as the governor of the Banadir region. That position remains appointed, as the constitutional status of the capital is unresolved and requires a national consensus — a prospect that has grown increasingly distant as political rifts deepen between President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and the leaders of the states of Jubaland and Puntland over constitutional reforms.
The central region has more than 900,000 voters registered across 523 polling stations, according to the electoral commission.
Somalia has faced security challenges, with the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab militant group often carrying out deadly attacks in the capital.
Security has intensified ahead of the local elections.
Analysts say the Mogadishu vote represents the most concrete attempt yet to move Somalia away from its longstanding clan-based, power-sharing system.
“Mogadishu has demonstrated that local elections are technically feasible,” said Mohamed Husein Gaas, founding director of the Raad Peace Research Institute.
By moving ahead with the vote, Gaas said the federal government was empowering citizens, strengthening accountability and moving towards a more inclusive and legitimate state.
He said plans to expand direct elections to federal member states and eventually to the national level reflect a phased approach aimed at balancing security, political inclusion and development.
“The process signals a commitment to building a durable Somali state grounded in democracy, public trust, national cohesion and long-term stability,” Gaas said.
A first-time voter, Farhiyo Mohamed, expressed her excitement, saying, “This is something I have never seen before, since I was born: such an election happening before my own eyes and to take part in a universal election like this.”
Opposition parties, however, argue that abandoning negotiated, clan-based arrangements without agreement risks undermining Somalia’s fragile federal settlement.
The elections, which were postponed three times this year, have drawn sharp criticism from opposition leaders, who accuse the government of using the process to entrench power and pave the way for extending the president’s term, which is due to end in 2026 — an allegation authorities deny.
People queue to cast their votes during the local election in Mogadishu, Somalia, Thursday, Dec. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)
People queue to cast their votes during the local election in Mogadishu, Somalia, Thursday, Dec. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)
Somalia's former deputy prime minister Mahdi Mohamed Guled casts his vote during the local election in Mogadishu, Somalia, Thursday, Dec. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)
A woman casts her vote during the local election in Mogadishu, Somalia, Thursday, Dec. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Farah Abdi Warsameh)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday that Pam Bondi is out as his attorney general, ending the contentious tenure of a loyalist who upended the Justice Department’s culture of independence from the White House, oversaw large-scale firings of career employees and moved aggressively to investigate the Republican president’s perceived enemies.
The departure of the country's chief law enforcement officer followed months of scrutiny from angry conservatives over the Justice Department's handling of files related to the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking investigation and failed efforts to please Trump through unsuccessful efforts to build criminal cases against prominent foes, investigations that in some cases have been rejected by judges or grand juries.
Trump named Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche as the acting attorney general, though three people familiar with the matter have said he has privately discussed Lee Zeldin, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, as a permanent pick.
“Pam Bondi is a Great American Patriot and a loyal friend, who faithfully served as my Attorney General over the past year,” Trump said in a statement. He added: “We love Pam, and she will be transitioning to a much needed and important new job in the private sector, to be announced at a date in the near future.”
Bondi, a former Florida attorney general, came into office last year pledging that she would not play politics with the Justice Department, but she quickly started investigations of Trump foes, sparking an outcry that the law enforcement agency was being wielded as a tool of revenge to advance the president’s political and personal agenda.
She ushered in a period of intense turmoil at the department that included the firings of career prosecutors deemed insufficiently loyal to Trump and the resignations of hundreds of other employees. Her departure continues a trend of Justice Department upheaval that has defined Trump’s presidency as multiple attorneys general across his two terms have either been pushed out or resigned after proving unwilling or unable to meet his demands for the position.
Bondi rejected accusations that she politicized the Justice Department and said her mission was to restore the institution’s credibility after overreach by President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration with two federal criminal cases against Trump. Bondi’s defenders have said she worked to refocus the department to better tackle illegal immigration and violent crime and brought much-needed change to an agency they believe unfairly targeted conservatives.
Bondi’s public embrace of the president, however, marked a sharp departure from her predecessors, who generally took pains to maintain an arm’s-length distance from the White House to protect the impartiality of investigations and prosecutions. Bondi postured herself as Trump’s chief supporter and protector, praising and defending him in congressional hearings and placing a banner with his face on the exterior of Justice Department headquarters.
She called for an end to the “weaponization” of law enforcement she said occurred under the Biden administration, even though Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, and Jack Smith, the special counsel who produced two cases against Trump, have said they followed the facts, the evidence and the law in their decision-making. Bondi’s critics, meanwhile, said she was the one who had politicized the agency to do the president’s bidding.
“You’ve turned the People’s Department of Justice into Trump’s instrument of revenge,” Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary committee, said at a February hearing.
Bondi delivered a combative performance but few substantive answers at that hearing as she angrily insulted her Democratic questioners with name-calling, praised Trump over the performance of the stock market — “The Dow is up over 50,000 right now” —- and openly aligned herself as in sync with a president whom she painted as a victim of past impeachments and investigations.
Even Republicans began to challenge her, with the Republican-led House Oversight Committee last month issuing a subpoena to her to appear for a closed-door interview about the Epstein files.
Under Bondi’s leadership, the department opened investigations into a string of Trump foes, including Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, New York Attorney General Letitia James, former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan. The high-profile prosecutions of Comey and James were short-lived as they were quickly thrown out by a judge who ruled that the prosecutor who brought the cases was illegally appointed.
Trump repeatedly publicly praised and defended Bondi but also showed flashes of impatience with his attorney general’s efforts to meet his demands to prosecute his rivals. In one extraordinary social media post last year, Trump called on Bondi to move quickly to prosecute his foes, including James and Comey, telling her: “We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility.”
Bondi oversaw the exodus of thousands of career employees — both through firings and voluntary departures — including lawyers who prosecuted violent attacks on police at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021; environmental, civil rights and ethics enforcers; counterterrorism prosecutors; and others.
She struggled to overcome early stumbles over the Epstein files that angered conservatives eager for government bombshells about the case, which has long fascinated conspiracy theorists. She herself had fed the conspiracy theory machine with a suggestion in a 2025 Fox News Channel interview that Epstein’s “client list” was sitting on her desk for review. The department later acknowledged that no such document exists.
Bondi was ridiculed over a move to hand out binders of Epstein files to conservative influencers at the White House only for it to be later revealed that the documents included no new revelations. And despite promises that more files were going to become public, the Justice Department in July said no more would be released, prompting Congress to pass a bill to force the agency to do so.
The Epstein files fumbles led to a stunning public criticism from White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, a close friend of Bondi’s, who told Vanity Fair that the attorney general “completely whiffed.” The Justice Department’s release of millions of pages of Epstein files did little to tamp down criticism, prompting a House committee with the support of five Republicans to subpoena Bondi to answer questions under oath.
Bondi, who defended Trump during his first impeachment trial, was his second choice to lead the Justice Department, picked for the role after former Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida withdrew his name from consideration amid scrutiny over sex trafficking allegations.
FILE - President Donald Trump, stands with then-defense attorney Todd Blanche, May 14, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle, Pool, file)
President Donald Trump speaks with Attorney General Pam Bondi during a roundtable discussion on public safety at a Tennessee Air National Guard Base, Monday, March 23, 2026, in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Attorney General Pam Bondi arrives before President Donald Trump speaks about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)
President Donald Trump participates in a roundtable discussion on public safety at a Tennessee Air National Guard Base, Monday, March 23, 2026, in Memphis, Tenn., with Attorney General Pam Bondi, right. (AP Photo/Bruce Newman)
Attorney General Pam Bondi listens during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, Thursday, March 26, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
President Donald Trump walks from the Blue Room to speak about the Iran war from the Cross Hall of the White House on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)
