Somalia Prime Minister quits

Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, Somalia’s Prime Minister, announced his resignation on Sunday following intense talks at Villa Somalia, the State House in Mogadishu

Speaking at a joint press conference with President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, Mr Mohamed said that he vacated the premiership in line with the Kampala Accord, an agreement signed in Kampala, Uganda by President Sheikh Ahmed and the Speaker of the Parliament, Sharif Hassan sheikh Aden on June 9 2011.
The Accord that resulted from talks that took place in early June under the auspices of Ugandan President, Yuweri Museveni, and facilitated by the UN Secretary General’s Special Envoy to Somalia, Dr Augustine Phillip Mahiga.

It demanded among other things that PM Mohamed to resign in 30 days.

The prime minister’s resignation paves the way for the formation of a new government.

President Sheikh Ahmed, who also spoke at Sunday’s press conference, assigned Mr Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, the deputy PM, the role of caretaker prime minister.

Mr Ali is also Minister of Planning and International Cooperation.

Last week, Mr Mohamed vowed that he would not resign unless the Transitional Federal Parliament endorsed the controversial Kampala Accord.

In rejecting the term of the agreement, the prime minister had said that he was moved by the demonstrations that rocked Mogadishu and upcountry districts demanding that his cabinet remain in power.

Somalis in the diaspora have continued to stage demonstrations in the US, Europe and other parts of Africa, especially in Kenya and Uganda, supporting Mr Mohamed’s position on the Kampala Accord.

Somali MPs meeting in Nairobi took issue with the PM’s resignation terming the Kamapala Accord illegal.

“The move to force the PM to resign shows foreign countries dictatorship and an interference with the sovereignty of Somalia and its people,” MP Awad Ahemd Ashareh said at Chester House in Nairobi.

The MPs said the accord contravenes the Somali’s Transitional Federal Charter and that it had sparked protests which led to deaths in Mogadishu last week.

The agreement, they added, was an indication that Somalia was falling into the domination of foreign powers.

They called on the UN Security Council to stop what they termed infringement of Somali people’s rights through the Kampala Accord.

A high-powered military delegation from Uganda has been in Mogadishu in the last 48 hours.

General Aronda Nyakairima, the Chief of Defence Forces of Uganda, held meetings with among others the Mr Mohamed.
The Ugandan officer is thought to have brought an important message for Mr Mohamed concerning the position of Uganda and other countries in the region.

The visit is thought to have have influenced the Somali PM to change position.

Burundi and Uganda have contributed 10,000 peacekeepers to the African Union Mission in Somalia, Amisom, guarding vital installations in Mogadishu and helping the pro-government forces fending off fighters of Al-Shabaab, the fanatical Islamist group in Somalia.

Somali Prime Minister Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed on Sunday announced he was resigning following an agreement ending the troubled country’s transitional administration.

“Considering the interest of the society and in compliance with the Kampala accord, I decided to quit to compromise for the national interest”, Abdullahi Mohamed told reporters in Mogadishu, thanking those who supported him.

Somali President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and parliament leader Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden signed a deal in the Ugandan capital on June 9 extending their terms for a year, pushing back polls due in August.

The accord stipulates that the prime minister’s mandate ends within 30 days and for his successor to be named by the president and approved by parliament in 14 days.

Elections for president and speaker of parliament will have to take place prior to August 20, 2012.

Somalia’s transitional government, which was set up in 2004 in Kenya and owes its survival to the international community, has been weakened by infighting between its leaders which has worsened as the end of the mandates approached.

Abdullahi Mohamed who was not one of the signatories rejected the deal on Tuesday.

“I will respect the wish of the Somali people who want me to stay in office, rather than implementing the Kampala accord,” he had told a press conference in Mogadishu.
The president had previously called for the extension, saying Somalia was too unstable for elections as it battles Al-Qaeda-inspired Islamist militants.
The president and the parliament speaker had two reasons for wanting to oust the prime minister.

Abdullahi Mohamed is an ethnic Ogadeni and they are under pressure from the Puntland region to replace him with a ethnic Darod. Moreover he has gained a degree of popularity and this has riled them.

On June 12, members of the government demanded unanimously that the agreement had to be ratified by parliament, a provision that did not figure in the agreement.

The mandate of the fragile transitional institutions theoretically ends August 20, having already been prolonged for two years.