Somali prime minister voted out of office by lawmakers- speaker
Sat Dec 6, 2014 11:25am GMT
(Adds speaker comment, background on political row)
MOGADISHU Dec 6 (Reuters) - Members of parliament voted Somalia's prime
minister out of office on Saturday for the second time in a year, a move
Western donors warned would threaten the war-torn nation's fragile recovery.
Prime Minister Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed had been embroiled in a row over a
cabinet reshuffle with President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who had overruled
the changes.
The prime minister had been in office for just under a year after his
predecessor, who also argued about the composition of the cabinet and been
accused of poor performance, was voted out.
"The prime minister and his government are out of office," Speaker Mohamed
Sheikh Osman Jawari said after 153 members of parliament voted against the
premier and 80 backed him. "We ask the president to establish a government
as soon as possible."
Western donors, who have poured in billions of dollars to help rebuild
Somalia after two decades of conflict, worry the removal of a second prime
minister in such a short space of time will weaken a government struggling
to defeat Islamist rebels.
Al Shabaab, which has been driven out of major strongholds in an offensive
this year by African and Somali troops, has continued to stage deadly
hit-and-run attacks.
In the past month, the Islamist group has killed dozens of people in attacks
including two cross-border raids inside Kenya by gunmen and Friday's twin
suicide bombings in the Somali town of Baidoa.
Parliament had tried to vote on three other occasions, only to have the
session cancelled because of raucous behaviour of lawmakers, reflecting the
political divisions of nation that has been riven by clan rivalries and the
Islamist insurgency.
Highlighting Western donor concerns, the U.S. State Department said in
November that "actions to put forward a parliamentary motion for a vote of
no confidence in the prime minister do not serve the interests of the Somali
people."
(Reporting by Feisal Omar; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Louise
Heavens and Clelia Oziel)