Somalia's opposition Future Council has thrown its weight behind the Supreme Court ruling that President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud's term in office has expired, and accused his administration of moving against the judges who delivered it. In a statement issued on Sunday, the council condemned what it described as an aggressive takeover of the Supreme Court by a president whose term has ended.

The council said security forces were actively pursuing the Supreme Court chairman, Bashe Yusuf Ahmed, and the judges who sat on the bench after they ruled that the president's term extension was illegal. It accused the administration of seizing the judicial headquarters and hunting down the court's leadership.

The ruling at the centre of the dispute was delivered on Thursday 5 November by five judges of the Supreme Court's Constitutional Division, led by Justice Salah Sheikh Ibrahim Dhiblawe. The bench held that the president's term ended on 15 May 2026 and that the mandates of both houses of Parliament and the federal government expired on 14 April 2026. It ordered political leaders to agree on an electoral framework within 30 days and to hold elections within 90 days.

The judges reasoned that constitutional amendments passed in March, which raised presidential and parliamentary terms from four years to five, did not state that the longer terms applied to institutions already in office. Those institutions therefore kept the four-year terms set in 2012, and everything they did after the expiry dates was legally invalid. The federal government may continue only as a caretaker administration, limited to routine affairs.

On the same day, the court also declared null and void the president's removal of Chief Justice Bashe Yusuf Ahmed. The court said the decree, issued the night before, ignored the procedure the constitution sets for removing a judge, which requires a proposal from the Judicial Service Commission approved by both houses of Parliament. The decree handed the bench to Ibrahim Idle Suleiman, the legal affairs secretary of the president's Justice and Solidarity Party, and the court said the move was designed to obstruct a constitutional case brought by former President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.

The Future Council, which brings together opposition leaders and the Puntland and Jubaland administrations, said the ruling offered a path to defuse the political conflict and save the country from mounting instability. It warned citizens of what it called grave threats to Somali statehood, governance and national security, and said the president bore personal responsibility for any fallout.

Addressing international partners, the council set out the court's timeline: Parliament's mandate expired on 14 April 2026 and the presidential term ended on 15 May 2026. It declared all contracts, policy decisions and legislative agreements enacted after those dates null and void, and pledged a full review once legal supremacy was re-established.

The dispute has played out against a tense backdrop in Mogadishu. Security forces were reported to have entered the Supreme Court premises on Thursday afternoon with more than 30 military pickups and ordered the chief justice out of the building. The judges were later reported to have taken shelter at the home of former President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, fearing arrest. The government has confirmed none of these accounts and denied none of them.

President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has argued that the extension is lawful under the amendments, and his government has declared a transition period running to nationwide elections in April and May 2027. The electoral commission has scheduled parliamentary elections for 15 April 2027, followed by a presidential vote on 15 May. On the court's dates, however, the 90-day deadline for elections falls in early February 2027, more than three months before the commission's planned vote.

The president has invited opposition groups and civil society representatives to talks in Mogadishu from 14 to 18 November. The opposition National Salvation Forum has named a team to negotiate the agenda, but Puntland's President Said Abdullahi Deni has dismissed the proposed talks and called for an interim council to oversee elections.