Wherever you turn in Mogadishu, you will find a trace that bears witness to the destruction that the city has gone through, and you will also find a trace and a witness to the reconstruction and accelerated reconstruction that the city is witnessing, alongside those remaining traces that bear witness to the years of war in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, at the moment of the collapse of the Somali state on January 27, 1991, and the country’s entry into a devastating civil war that lasted for years.

An important democratic surprise in its timing comes this time from the Horn of Africa, specifically from “Somaliland”, the small breakaway republic that is not internationally recognized, where the most prominent opposition leader, Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi Ayro, won the presidency of this republic that has been searching for a place in the sun since the announcement of its difficult birth in 1991.