Mogadishu: Somalia’s new prime minister on Saturday dissolved his cabinet because of stiff opposition from parliament to the mammoth list unveiled less than a week ago, officials said.
Prime Minister Omar Abdul Rashid Ali Sharmarke, appointed last month after a damaging spat between his predecessor and internationally-backed President Hassan Shaikh Mohammad was given another two weeks to come up with a new cabinet list.
“The prime minister has dissolved the new cabinet list he has announced recently and is asking for fourteen more days to form another government,” parliament speaker Mohammad Osman Jawari told deputies.
In a letter to parliament that was read out by Jawari, the new premier said he had taken into account the “feelings and emotions of the lawmakers”. His decision to retract the list means he avoids what would be a highly damaging no-confidence vote.
Last week Sharmarke presented a giant cabinet of 60 people, including 26 ministers, 25 deputies and nine state ministers, and an increase of five posts from the previous cabinet.
Winning parliamentary approval, however, means overcoming the country’s complex clan politics, in which each group expects its share of power in Mogadishu - a recipient of billions in foreign aid from donors who see the government as offering the best chance for peace in a generation.
Somalia is due to vote on a new constitution next year ahead of elections in 2016, but Al Qaida-affiliated Al Shabab fighters remain a major threat and stage regular attacks.
The Somali government, which took power in August 2012, was the first to be given global recognition since the collapse of Siad Barre’s hardline regime in 1991.
Key donors including the United States and the European Union, however, have voiced increasing frustration over the political in-fighting.
