Hassan Ali Khaire.
Twitter via @HassanAKhaire
- Somalia’s parliament ousted Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire
- Khaire, and President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, have been tussling over whether to delay a national election
- Lawmakers voted 170-8 to remove Khaire from office.
Somalia’s parliament removed Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire from
his post in a vote of no confidence on Saturday for failing to pave the
way towards fully democratic elections, the speaker said.
A
whopping 170 of parliament’s 178 MPs backed the no confidence motion,
and Khaire’s ouster was immediately endorsed by President Mohamed
Abdullahi Farmajo, who had appointed him as prime minister in February
2017.
The deputies had arrived at the National Assembly on
Saturday to work on the organisation of the next national elections in
2021.
“After learning that the government had failed in its
promise to prepare a clear plan that paves the way for
one-person-one-vote elections in 2021… parliament undertook a vote of
no confidence against the government and its prime minister Hassan Ali
Khaire,” parliamentary speaker Mohamed Mursal told reporters.
“The
president of the federal government of Somalia… will appoint a prime
minister and a government which will pave the way for elections,” he
added.
The office of the president issued a statement indicating that Farmajo would nominate a new prime minister soon.
“I have decided to accept the decision of the parliament,” the president said in the statement.
The
fragile central government, chaired by Farmajo, controls only a part of
Somali territory and is facing an insurgency from the
Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Shabaab militant group.
Somalia has set
itself the goal of holding a one-person, one-vote national election in
early 2021 — as opposed to a complex system in which special delegates
pick lawmakers who then vote for the president — in what would be its
first full democratic election since 1969.
Khaire, 52, was a
newcomer to the political scene when he became prime minister, having
previously held the post of Director of the Africa department of the
British oil company Soma Oil and Gas.
Khaire is a member of the
Hawiye clan while Farmajo is from the Darod clan, in keeping with the
traditional balance at the top of the Somali executive.
