Tuesday, December 27, 2011
One of the thorny issues at the meeting was good governance, which included parliamentary reform before end of the shelf-life of the current government by August 20, 2012.
According to the Garowe Principle, the Somali
parliament will be composed of 225 MPs that will be selected on the
basis of the clan power sharing-formula of 4.5, that is an allocation
for ‘one lot’ for each of four big Somali clans while 0.5 is allocated
for a coalition of smaller clans.
It will mean a marked reduction from the current number of 550 MPs.
When the TFG was established in Kenya, following two years (2002-2004) of talks at Mbagathi, 275 individuals were selected as MPs.
The number was doubled at the end of another reconciliation conference in Djibouti in 2008, boosting the legislators to 550. The next parliament will have a Chamber of Elders (a sort of Senate).