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Somali PM, Ali M. Gedi |
Baidoa, Somalia – Somalia’s interim parliament delayed on Saturday a no confidence vote in Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi, whom some lawmakers want ousted as a prelude to a peace deal with Islamists.
The scheduled debate, which had heightened political tensions in the interim government’s provincial seat of Baidoa, was postponed due to the funeral of a minister assassinated on Friday in the latest flare-up of violence in Somalia.
“Today we have buried our beloved minister, so there will be no meeting of parliament. The vote will wait for the next session,” Information Minister Mohamed Abdi Hayr told Reuters.
The shooting of Constitution and Federalism Minister Abdallah Deerow Isaq outside a mosque in Baidoa triggered major riots and heightened fears of a slide to all-out conflict in the violence-plagued Horn of Africa nation.
Hundreds of mourners, including most top government figures, attended his funeral on Saturday morning, witnesses said.
Postponement of the vote on Gedi was clearly intended to reduce tensions in Baidoa, where ministers and lawmakers are split on the issue.
Those who want him out see it as the best way to draw rival Islamists, who took Mogadishu and a swathe of southern Somalia last month, into a power-sharing agreement.
The alternative, many fear, is war.
Ethiopia has sent troops into Somalia to back the government, witnesses say, while Eritrea is thought by many to be funnelling arms to the Islamists.
Minister Hayr said parliament had not decided when to debate the no confidence motion.
“It could be tomorrow (Sunday), or the next day, we will wait and see what the speaker of parliament decides,” he said.
Authorities say seven men have now been arrested for Friday’s killing of the minister.
“We believe one of them is the killer, but I would rather wait before saying where he is from,” Hayr added.
(Reporting by Guled Mohamed in Baidoa, Andrew Cawthorne in Nairobi)
Source: Reuters, July 29, 2006
