From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Mon May 17 2010 - 18:21:55 EDT
Somali president to appoint new PM, speaker quits
Mon May 17, 2010 3:07pm GMT
* Parliament dissolved cabinet on Sunday
* Speaker resigns
* Analysts say president in deal with PM, speaker
(Adds Ethiopian troops in Somalia)
By Ibrahim Mohamed
MOGADISHU, May 17 (Reuters) - Somalia's parliament speaker quit on Monday
and the president said he would appoint a new prime minister in what
analysts saw as a deal to clear the way for a more stable government in the
Horn of Africa nation.
Meeting for the first time on Sunday since December, Somalia's parliament
voted overwhelmingly to oust Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke and
his Western-backed government. Some also voted to remove speaker Sheikh Aden
Madobe.
Analysts said the move by President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed was likely decided
in a deal with the speaker and the prime minister to save the government
from total disintegration and that the president would probably reappoint
Sharmarke.
"It is a sort of compromise to save the government from a total collapse,"
said Rashid Abdi, a Somalia analyst at the International Crisis Group.
"It is likely that the president will reappoint the current prime minister,
as long as they had no rift between them."
Parliamentary business has been paralysed this year, with many legislators
living in Kenya, Europe and North America because of security fears in the
war-riven country.
The chamber has also been split by a bitter feud over the duration of
Madobe's term in office and his competence.
There was speculation Madobe might be offered a ministerial post in a new
government, in return for his resignation.
NEW BEGINNING?
Analysts say Ahmed has failed to unite some of the country's warring
factions and establish a greater degree of central power that many had hoped
at his election in January 2009.
"I do not think the president's announcement is to increase confusion in the
system," said Abdirahman Moalim Badiyow, history professor at Mogadishu
University.
"The resignation of the speaker and the president's decision seems to be a
gentlemen's agreement paving the way for a new start. And that new beginning
will depend on the incoming speaker and prime minister."
Somalia has been mired in violence and lacked effective central government
since the overthrow of a dictator in 1991. Islamist fighters have waged a
three-year insurgency that has killed more than 21,000 people.
Elsewhere in Somalia, villagers said Ethiopian troops in armoured vehicles
had crossed into the border town of El Barde, in the south central Bakool
region.
"Heavily armed Ethiopian troops with battlewagons arrived in the town early
Monday afternoon. There was no confrontation and al Shabaab fled the town
before the Ethiopians came," Ali Nur, a resident in El Barde, told Reuters
by phone.
Ethiopia sent thousands of troops into Somalia in 2006 to help topple an
Islamist movement holding Mogadishu and most of the south. That drew
protests from some in the Muslim world and enraged the Islamists, who
regrouped to launch an insurgency.
"The Christians have entered the town and our Mujahideen fighters are not
far," said Hassan Maalin Takow, an al Shabaab commander. (Additional
reporting by Mohamed Ahmed in Mogadishu, Abdiaziz Hassan, Sahra Abdi in
Nairobi; Writing by Helen Nyambura-Mwaura; Editing by David Clarke)
C Thomson Reuters 2010 All rights reserved
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