Somalia’s President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed has appointed a Prime Minister only hours after brokering an agreement with regional leaders for elections next year that abandons the one-person, one-vote model which was earlier promised.
Late on Thursday, the office of the president announced the appointment of Mohamed Hussein Roble, a Sweden-trained civil engineer who is new on the political scene. He has been urged to take duties and tasks ahead of him with diligence.
Mohamed Hussein occupies an office that has been left vacant since the removal of former premier Hassan Ali Khaire by parliament in July for failing to pave the way for fully democratic elections due before February 2021.
There had been ongoing negotiations between the government in Mogadishu and Somalia’s federal states over how to proceed with the parliamentary and presidential elections.
The process has however been held-up by disagreements between the president and the country’s regional leaders.
The country had decided to hold its first fully democratic, one-man one-vote election since 1969, The past was a system where special delegates picked lawmakers who then vote for the president.
But the president, five regional leaders and the mayor of Mogadishu had reached an agreement conceding that such a vote will not be possible between now and November which is the time left before Somalia’s parliament needs to be changed, and Farmajo’s term ends in February.
The negotiators said in an official communique, that delegates from Somalia’s myriad clans will elect the 275 MPs of the lower house, which will in turn choose the president.
While the process shares a resemblance with the last election held in 2017, it goes a bit further in terms of inclusivity, with a total of 27,775 delegates voting, nearly twice the total number from last time.
