Political Gridlock continues in Somalia
Mogadishu, Somalia, November 15th 2014 (Somali Agenda)–Parliamentarians loyal to Somali Prime Minister Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed successfully disrupted a debate on a motion of no confidence tabled against the prime minister for the second time in a week. The motion tabled by allies of Somalia’s president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud is aimed at sacking the prime minister after relations between the two leaders collapsed disrupting the working of the government. The ongoing political crisis has drawn the condemnation of the International Community with the government of the United States threatening to suspend support to Somalia.
Holding placards that read “no votes for cash” the prime minister’s supporters prevented the parliamentary leadership led by Speaker Mohamed Osman Jawaari from initiating a debate on the fate of the prime minister. Sources tell SOMALI AGENDA that the principal tactic of the Prime Minister’s parliamentarian allies is to drag the conflict as long as possible.
Speaker Jawaari’s successive succumbing to the disruptive tactics by the Prime Minister’s allies has drawn the anger of presidential loyalists in the parliament. Former TFG constitutional affairs minister and current member of the Federal Parliament Abdirehman Hosh Jibril called for the speaker to resign if he could not moderate and control the parliament. Similar sentiments were echoed by parliamentarians associated with the president. They accuse the Prime Minister’s allies of holding the parliament hostage.
Somalia’s embattled Prime Minister Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed faces unprecedented popular backlash as a result of a controversial agreement he recently signed in Garowe with Puntland administration that derailed a political process to establish a new federal state in Somalia’s Central Regions.
The ongoing political bickering coincides with an unprecedented floods in Somalia’s Middle Shabelle and Hiiraan Regions and droughts in Gedo. The United Nations estimates more than three million Somalis to be in need of emergency humanitarian assistance.
