JEDDAH, 30 October — Somalis in the Kingdom yesterday expressed mixed reactions over the no-confidence vote received by the government in Mogadishu, some saying it was a right move and others saying it was politically motivated.
"The sacking of the Cabinet was caused by its inability to serve the Somali people," said Abdullahi Rage, a petroleum company official based in Jeddah.
Hussein Jama, an economist, said the vote was inevitable because of the "growing discontent" among the Somali people toward their president.
Members of the Transitional National Assembly on Sunday voted out of office Prime Minister Ali Khalif Galaydh and his Cabinet, saying it had failed to pursue national reconciliation, mismanaged foreign aid, and failed to establish rule of law in war-torn Horn of African country.
Of the 174 TNA members who were present during the voting, 141 supported the no-confidence motion, while 29 opposed it and 4 abstained.
To Ahmed Omer Farah, a supervisor at the trading company Injaz, the dismissal of the prime minister has no meaning to the people of Somalia.
"Galaydh is well-educated and knows all his responsibilities. President Abdi Kasim Salad wants to hijack the duties of the government," Farah said.
"This power struggle was the prime reason why the president had lobbied in parliament to topple the government. He wants to name a yes man, who obeys his orders.
"Galaydh inherited last year the responsibility of governing a country which has no civil service or nothing on the ground — actually the ground zero. He has been trying to establish a civil service and machinery for policy making, whether it is public or private. Therefore, accusations against Galaydh is totally baseless," he added.
Still, members of the local community hoped to see something better that would result from the dismissal of the Galaydh Cabinet.
"I hope that the president would choose well-qualified Cabinet members; people with new political thinking, who have respect for human rights and high values based on humane sensibilities, and political pluralism in policy formulation," economist Hussein Jama said.
Farah said President Salad should lead by example and serve the nation with integrity and transparency.
One positive thing about the Sunday vote, he said, is that after 10 years of anarchy, there seems to be hope after all for Somalia.
He said one lesson Somalis have learned is that the leaders should have to shape up or face dismissal in the national assembly.
"Somalis need a new political culture quite different from the one that caused the current political turmoil in the country," Farah said.
