Pana
Saturday, February 21, 2009
The new Somalia cabinet, which has designated most of the senior and influential positions to the allies of the new President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed and his allies in the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS), is leading the government home.
Somalia's bloated parliament of more than 500 members is expected to relocate this weekend from Djibouti, where it has been over the past few months to discuss the formation of a new national unity government and its organs.
President Ahmed, the leader of the ARS, and his new Prime Minister Omar Abdi Rashid Sharmake, have completed the process of forming a national unity government with members of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG), which was ruling the country.
TFG members lost the elections in Mogadishu to the members of the ARS, mainly former members of the moderate group of Somali Islamists, which ran the coalition called the Supreme Council of Islamist Courts Union in Somalia before the Ethiopian invasion.
Ethiopia has welcomed the election of the new Islamist government in Mogadishu and said it was waiting for specific requests from the new government on the nature of assistance it needs to successfully run the affairs of the Horn of Africa nation.
The new cabinet comprises members of the ARS, the TFG and other political groups in Somalia.
UN Special Envoy to Somalia, Ahmedou Ould Abdallah, has hailed the formation of the new cabinet, saying it brought together all the key allies and elements in Somalia.
"I am very pleased that the Prime Minister has chosen a Government of National Unity as outlined in the Djibouti Agreement of 18 August 2008," the UN envoy said.
"It is encouraging to see members of the original Transitional Federal Government alongside some fresh faces from what was the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia. This cabinet is a healthy combination of experience and youth and I welcome it."
Mr Ould-Abdallah said he was happy that the new Government would return to Mogadishu this weekend to start work on alleviating the plight of their compatriots.
Somalia has been without a stable government for the past 18 years. There have been 16 different attempts to form a stable government for the country.
The TFG was formed in Nairobi after two years of painstaking talks but failed to take control over its internal bickering. The Ethiopian government sent its troops to help the TFG to capture the capital, driving away the members of the moderate Islamist groups which had control of Mogadishu.
The group fled to Djibouti, from where it opened talks with the government on ways of resolving the political crisis in the country. The new joint cabinet comprises members of the TFG and the ARS, which will form a joint national security council.
Source: Pana, Feb 10, 2009