Somali warlords want president impeached

NAIROBI (AFP) - The crisis over the relocation from exile of Somalia's transitional government deepened Wednesday as powerful warlords said they would move to impeach President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed.

Warlords controlling Somalia's bullet-scarred capital of Mogadishu said they would introduce a no-confidence motion against Yusuf in parliament and seek his removal for allegedly violating the lawless country's transitional charter.

"A vote of no confidence on the president is coming ... there is enough evidence to impeach him," said Somali construction minister and Mogadishu warlord Osman Ali Ato.

"We are fed up with him," he told AFP, maintaining that his faction had enough support in the 275-member clan-based Somali parliament to sack the president over plans for the government's eventual move from Kenya.

Ato said pro-impeachment MPs were meeting in Nairobi to discuss strategy for the no-confidence motion while Yusuf, himself a former warlord from the northeastern region of Puntland, is at a meeting of Arab leaders in Algeria.

Information Minister Mahmoud Jama decried the threat to impeach Yusuf, saying the warlords were bent on destabilising the government, which has been rocked by infighting in recent months.

"This is a propaganda move aimed at creating confusion," he said.

The warlords have been piling pressure on Yusuf ever since he took office in October following a vote by the parliament.

Sources close to the warlords said they had decided to pursue impeachment now because of what they called Yusuf's blatant violation of the transitional charter in planning for the government's move to Somalia.