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MOGADISHU — Somali lawmakers voted to oust the prime minister yesterday amid furious power struggles among top leaders that could undermine efforts to rebuild the war-torn nation and tackle Islamist insurgents.Abdi Farah Shirdon, prime minister of the Horn of Africa nation for just over a year, lost the confidence vote in parliament after he resisted President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s demand that he resign.
“The motion has passed,” said speaker Mohamed Osman Jawari, noting that 184 out of 249 lawmakers in parliament voted to sack Shirdon.
“The current prime minister and his government will continue with their work until a new prime minster and a cabinet is nominated,” Jawari added.
The precise cause of the power struggle is unclear, but politicians have pointed to wrangling over alleged corruption, personal loyalties as well as Somalia’s complex clan politics, where each community expects to be represented in the corridors of power.
Shirdon, who left the parliament building before the vote, spoke out angrily saying he had been barred from making a speech in his defence.
“They refused to let me talk . . . and that is unacceptable, even the accused has the right to defend himself,” Shirdon told reporters minutes before the vote took place. The government, which took power in August 2012, was the first to be given global recognition since the collapse of the hardline regime in 1991, and billions in foreign aid has since poured in. — AFP.
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