Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Africa Brief.

The highlights this week: Somalia’s political deadlock worsens after clashes broke out last week, U.S. policies block Africans from entering the country as the World Cup gets underway, and South Africa’s president walks a delicate tightrope on immigration in the wake of deadly protests.

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Africa Brief.

The highlights this week: Somalia’s political deadlock worsens after clashes broke out last week, U.S. policies block Africans from entering the country as the World Cup gets underway, and South Africa’s president walks a delicate tightrope on immigration in the wake of deadly protests.

Somalia’s Election Crisis

Fighting between Somali federal troops and opposition-allied militias broke out in Somalia’s capital of Mogadishu on June 3, as the country’s political crisis spirals, threatening the future of its electoral system.

Tensions have flared in recent months over delays to Somalia’s elections, originally scheduled for earlier this year, and the highly contested one-year extension to President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s term, which was slated to end on May 15.

Last week’s clashes, which killed one person and injured 55 others, occurred ahead of planned protests for June 4 against the term extension. The demonstrations did not end up taking place.

The Somali government said it restored order through mediation involving clan elders. (Somali society is broadly divided into five patrilineal clans, where elders play a role in conflict resolution and governance.)

Yet official talks between the government and opposition, led by the United States and United Kingdom, have not resumed since they collapsed on May 15. On Sunday, former President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, widely known as Farmaajo, said he would lead a dialogue to try to resolve the political deadlock.

The disagreement has centered on Mohamud’s goal of shifting the country to a one-person, one-vote electoral system. Somalia has not held a direct national vote since a 1969 coup by autocratic leader Mohamed ​Siad Barre, which was followed by decades of military rule and civil war. After the fall of Barre’s military government in 1991, the country had no effective central government. Since a central state was reestablished in 2012, leaders have been elected through indirect clan-based power-sharing.

In March, Somalia’s parliament passed constitutional amendments to replace the old system—whereby clan elders choose the parliament, which then selects a president—and move to a direct vote. These also extended the mandates of both the president and parliament from four to five years, pushing back elections by a........

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