NAIROBI: A third round of talks aimed at restoring a functional government in Somalia resumed on Wednesday in the Kenya capital, with delegates focussing on how power would be shared once normalcy returns to the Horn of Africa nation, mediators said.
Some 360 delegates, including clan elders, warlords, and the civil society met in five separate locations in Nairobi, to distribute 275 seats of the Transitional Federal National Assembly, among major clans, namely Hawiye, Dir, Darod and Digil-Mirifle.
"The talks have opened and the new Somali members of parliament would be selected by politicians and civil society members, before being endorsed by genuine traditional leaders," Abdullahi Sheikh of the Hawiye community told AFP.
"Of the four major and one minority clans, each was allocated a separate place so that their representatives could agree on their own, before meeting the others in a plenary," an IGAD mediator said. Under the Transitional Federal Charter (TFC) signed on January 29, minority clans would have 31 seats, while women would occupy 20 percent seats in the 275-strong parliament.
The charter also outlines how the president will be elected and a draft constitution approved. On election, the MPs are expected to select a federal president, who would in turn appoint a prime minister before the close of this round, seen as the most crucial part of the convoluted process.
Wednesday’s session also saw several other people, even those who are not delegates; present themselves to their respective clan’s venue for the latest exercise to canvas for possible appointment.
"I am not a delegate, but I came here to be considered for MP position. If the MPs are selected only from the delegates invited in the talks, it would be a monopoly and would not be fair," Darod clansman Yassin Hersi told AFP. The talks, which opened in the absence of almost half a dozen warlords who left the talks after the TFC agreement, did not go down well with a section of the delegates. "But mediators from the Inter-governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) on Wednesday dispatched a delegation to Somalia to request them back into negotiations," the mediator said.
"We blame major warlords and politicians who didn’t show up in the informal meeting, thinking that they are much more important than the people they claim to represent by the will of the gun," delegate Hassan Abdi said. Current efforts to restore normalcy in Somalia started on October 15, 2002 and two weeks later, warlords signed a ceasefire, which has often been violated, resulting in the killing of more than 100 people.