Somali president reappoints Gedi as prime minister

www.chinaview.cn 2004-12-14 03:19:36

NAIROBI, Dec. 13 (Xinhuanet) -- Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf on Monday renominated Ali Mohammed Gedi as prime minister, who will meet the speaker of parliament to convene a special session this week to approve the appointment, according to the Somali presidential spokesman.

After the approval, the prime minister will immediately announce a new cabinet and the whole process will be completed within 15 days, Yusuf Mohammed Ismel, the presidential spokesman, told Xinhua by telephone.

The Somali parliament on last Saturday passed a motion to ouster the prime minister and nullify the cabinet, accusing President Yusuf of violating article 49 of the transitional constitution because the new cabinet was sworn in without being submitted to parliament for approval.

A total of 153 members of the 275-member transitional parliament voted against Gedi, who was first appointed as prime minister on Nov. 3.

However, those who voted for the motion were not against the president and the prime minister themselves, said a senior Somali official, adding that they are not satisfied with the make-up of Gedi's cabinet, which was formed in the Kenyan capital Nairobi on Dec. 1.

Somalia has been without an effective government since 1991 when the regime of Muhammad Siad Barre was toppled, following which the country plunged into anarchy and factional violence.

Since the breakdown of the Somali central government, conflict and famine have killed hundreds of thousands of people.

Under the auspices of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development, which groups Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda and Somalia, Somali National Reconciliation Conference began in October 2002 in the western Kenyan town of Eldoret, and was moved to Nairobi in February 2003.

As a result of the conference, Somali Transitional President Abdullahi Yusuf was inaugurated on Oct. 14 this year in Nairobi.
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