BAIDOA, Somalia, 18 January 2007 — Somali lawmakers sacked the speaker of Parliament yesterday in a move that exposed the fault lines within the country’s fragile interim administration.
A total of 183 MPs gathered at the government’s temporary base of Baidoa voted to dismiss Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden, who is currently out of the country, while only nine voted against.
Aden angered many in Baidoa in November by launching unauthorized negotiations with the now-defeated Islamists who were then ruling the capital Mogadishu.
Since the Islamists’ ouster last month, the government has been trying to impose its authority and end the warlordism, which has dogged Somalia for the last 16 years. Somali watchers however fear the dismissal of Aden, a member of the Rahawein clan, which predominates in Baidoa, could undermine stabilization efforts and polarize the government and Parliament, whose formation is based on a complex power-sharing alliance among fractious clans.
Sareedo Abdallah, one of the MPs who pushed for Aden to be sacked, told a debate leading up to the vote that Aden’s freelance peace efforts could not be tolerated. She also noted he had not attended Parliament for four months.
“The speaker became a government of his own and acted against the charter and all regulations laid down for the transitional federal institutions.” After Arab League-mediated peace talks foundered last November, Aden clashed with the government over how to deal with the Islamists, who defeated the Mogadishu warlords in June and rapidly extended their control.
He brokered negotiations with the Islamists that resulted in a call for the resumption of the talks, a move the government strongly rejected.
President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed has since been itching to sack him and while Aden remained useful as a link to the Islamists, their fall left him out on a limb.
However one of Aden’s allies warned the move would do huge damage to the government’s image.
“The action was regrettable and undermined the unity of the parliament and the government,” Aviation Minister Ibrahim Mohamed Habsade told AFP after the vote.
Francois Fall, special representative of United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon in Somalia, refused to comment directly on the sacking but reiterated a plea for unity. “I am waiting to meet the president (Yusuf) tomorrow to get an explanation for the dismissal of the speaker,” he told AFP in neighboring Nairobi.
“We have always called for unity within the transitional institutions and still support dialogue among the Somalis.” Aden has also managed to upset some MPs by his lengthy absences and he is currently thought to be in Brussels.
Others claim he has written to the United Nations and other agencies asking them to stop funding the parliament in Baidoa.
At the formation of the government in 2004 in Kenya, Aden was seen as a factor for the participation of the Rahawein clan in the government of Yusuf, himself from the Darod clan.
Yusuf’s regime was largely powerless until late last month when the Ethiopian Army intervened and led a march on Mogadishu, prompting the Islamists to flee.
Ethiopia is hoping to withdraw its troops in a matter of weeks but efforts to persuade other African countries to join a peacekeeping force have made slow progress with only Uganda so far agreeing to contribute soldiers.
South Africa is among those being asked but Pretoria was skeptical about a rapid deployment.
“Our commitment will be determined by how far South Africa is stretched in its other commitments and it will be announced in due course,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad.
“However, it is difficult to envisage how the African troops can be deployed within days ... The African Union is already carrying a heavy burden of troops in Sudan and elsewhere.”
