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Somalia parliament votes out PM

December 6, 2014

Somalia's parliament has voted out its second prime minister in a year. International donors had warned the move would threaten the war-torn nation's fragile recovery.

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Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/S.Y. Warsame

At odds for months with President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud over a Cabinet reshuffle, Prime Minister Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed lost Saturday's vote of confidence. Ahmed (pictured) had held his post for just under a year after the parliament voted out his predecessor, Abdi Farah Shirdon, who, likewise, had argued about the composition of the Cabinet and received accusations of poor performance in return.

"The prime minister and his government are out of office," speaker Mohamed Sheikh Osman Jawari said on Saturday, after 153 members of parliament had voted against the premier and 80 backed him.

Parliament attempted to oust Ahmed on three other occasions, but unruly lawmaker behavior led to the cancellation of the sessions. International donors who have invested billions to help rebuild Somalia after two decades of conflict, worry that the removal of a second prime minister in such a short space of time will weaken a government struggling to defeat the nominally Islamist al Shabab movement, whose attacks have occasionally spilled across the border into Kenya.

In an offensive this year, troops from Somalia and the African Union have driven al Shabab out of major strongholds, but the group continues to successfully stage deadly hit-and-run attacks such as an assault earlier this week on a UN convoy. In the past month, al Shabab has killed dozens of people in attacks, including two cross-border raids inside Kenya by gunmen and twin suicide bombings on Friday in the Somali town of Baidoa.

Anschlag in Mogadischu 03.12.2014
A bomb attack Wednesday on a UN convoy killed three SomalisImage: Reuters/F. Omar

'Serve the interests'

Political wrangling and reports of corruption have raised concerns that the current government, like the previous administration, cannot overcome its infighting to unite in the face of the threat by al Shabab. Just this week, the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, which found that several African nations had trouble tackling the issue, again ranked Somalia No. 1 in the world for graft.

Highlighting the concerns of international donors, the US State Department had claimed 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." In addition to the United States, the UN and EU have warned that the power struggles would put the progress Somalia has made at risk.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs warns that Somalia faces a "deepening humanitarian crisis," with more than 3 million people needing aid. The number of people in need has grown for the first time since the end of a devastating famine three years ago.

mkg/se (Reuters, AFP, dpa)