By RODRIQUE NGOWI
Associated Press Writer
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP): Somalia's new president named a prime minister, choosing a member from another of the four largest clans to preside over what is hoped will be a government of reconciliation in the war-ravaged country.
President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed gave Ali Mohamed Ghedi one month to name a Cabinet before the government is set to relocate to the Somali capital, Mogadishu, from neighboring Kenya, where it has been based temporarily because of lack of security at home.
Yusuf, a Darod clan member elected Oct. 10 by the country's transitional parliament, chose a member of the Hawiye clan in line with an unwritten agreement to fill key government and legislative posts along clan lines.
The Hawiye clan controls the Somali capital, while the Darod control the semiautonomous region of Puntland. Yusuf previously was the regional leader.
Yusuf is unpopular in the Somali capital because of his ties to neighboring Ethiopia. His selection of a popular Hawiye leader to become prime minister is considered key to the new government's success and its eventual return to Mogadishu.
"He should seek allies and strengthen ties in Mogadishu before he goes back to the country,'' U.N. envoy to Somalia, Winston Tubman, said Wednesday by telephone from London. "He needs somebody ... who could give him assurances on the security front that would enable him to reside there.''
The new government faces a daunting task of establishing order in a country with no revenue or infrastructure after more than a decade of bitter civil war that degenerated into clan and turf warfare.
Ghedi pledged to work with all groups to rebuild the Horn of African nation.
"The government that I will form will be the government of reconciliation, a government of reconstruction, a government that will have very good relations in the sub-region,'' Ghedi said after being named prime minister Wednesday at a hotel in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
Yusuf chose Ghedi after the 275-member parliament rejected his earlier plan to nominate the leader of a fiefdom outside Mogadishu, saying the transitional charter requires a legislator be named to the post, a senior legislator said on condition of anonymity.
Somalia has had no effective central government since opposition leaders ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991. Then they turned on each other, transforming this nation of 7 million into a patchwork of battling fiefdoms ruled by heavily armed militias.
There have been 13 previous peace efforts, and two previous governments were formed but never managed to take effective control over most of the country.
Somalia's civil war has left more than 500,000 dead, 2 million driven from their homes and 1.5 million refugees in neighbouring countries. The new president has no civil service, treasury or even buildings to meet in.