December 1, 2004
Nairobi
The interim prime minister of Somalia, Ali Muhammad Gedi, on Wednesday named a partial-government of 27 ministers who immediately took oath of office at a ceremony attended by President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
Gedi's director of communications, Hussein Jabiri, told IRIN that the full government would consist of 31 ministers, 31 vice-ministers and five state ministers. The rest of the cabinet along with the vice-ministers, he said, would be named "within a few days".
"After long consultations with the various Somali parties, the prime minister has come up with a broad-based, all-inclusive cabinet," Jabiri said. All Somali factions, he added, were represented in the new cabinet, with some faction leaders being given important ministry positions.
Missing from the list were prominent faction leaders Hussein Aydid and Muhammad Qanayre.
The post of minister of commerce went to the Mogadishu-based faction leader Muse Sudi Yalahow, while another Mogadishu-based faction leader, Usman Hassan Atto, will be the new minister of public works. Kismayo-based faction leader Barre Hirale becomes the minister for reconstruction.
Baidoa-based faction leaders, Hassan Muhammad Nur Shatigadud and Adan Madobe, become agriculture and justice ministers, respectively, Jabiri told IRIN. Abdullahi Shaykh Isma'il, another faction leader, will be both the new deputy prime minister and foreign affairs minister.
Female Somali leaders, however, decried the lack of gender balance in the new cabinet, which has only one full woman minister, Fawzia Muhammad Shayka, for gender affairs.
Asha Abdalla, an MP, told IRIN that the appointment of one woman would be "an injustice against Somali women".
"There should have been at least four women ministers," she added. "This is a continuation of the marginalisation of women."
Asha Haji another MP told IRIN: "It is unfortunate that women are once again marginalised. We have been denied our quota in the parliament and again in the cabinet."
The Somali interim constitution stipulates that 12 percent of the members of parliament should be women. However, they only account for eight percent of the current 275 parliamentarians.
"I have personally campaigned that women should been given posts as women and not as part of clans," she added. "Every time the clans have been asked to submit names, there are never a woman among them".
Meanwhile, regional analysts questioned the size of the new cabinet and whether Somalia can afford it.
"We know that it is a real challenge to balance the demand for inclusivity with that of practicality and function, but it is very hard to imagine what 31 ministers will do in Somalia at this stage," Matt Bryden, of the International Crisis Group, told IRIN.
"This suggests that the new leadership is guided by form, rather than function," he added. "This government is [financially penniless] and if it can not trim its expectations to reflect its actual means, then I am afraid it will fail."
Yusuf was elected to head Somalia on 10 October by members of the transitional federal parliament sitting in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. He named Gedi as interim prime minister, an appointment that marked the culmination of a two-year reconciliation conference sponsored by the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development that brought together representatives from various clans and factions.
Somalia had ceased to function as a modern state in 1991 when armed groups overthrew the regime of Siyad Barre, precipitating a ruinous civil war that saw numerous warring warlords and their militias carve the country into fiefdoms.