Sunday December 13, 2020
GAROWE (HOL) - Puntland President Abdullahi Deni has turned down a request by Prime Minister Mohamed Roble to appoint a state level elections committee but instead set out conditions in what could further complicate efforts to hold elections on time.
Roble travelled to Garowe Friday in the hope of convincing Deni, a hardline political nemesis of Mogadishu to appoint the interim state level elections team to oversee elections of MPs but was instead met with conditions by Deni.
Source close to the talks told HOL Deni demanded the Federal Government accede to Ahmed Madobe’s call for withdrawal of Federal troops from Gedo and that it reconstitutes the Federal level elections committee and that of Somaliland.
Madobe who is a close ally of Deni and both of whom remain staunch opponents of the Federal Government has repeatedly urged President Mohamed Farmaajo to pull out troops from Gedo region failure tow which elections will not take place there.
The opposition and civil society groups have also demanded that the president dissolves the Federal Indirect Elections Team (FIET) on grounds that he appointed security officials and senior civil servants.
Federal Member State presidents including Deni himself have been singled out for violating rules on independence of the poll committee by appointing cronies.
Only Jubbaland and Puntland are yet to appoint their respective electoral committees.