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Somalia’s long-delayed elections will go “as planned,” Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble told visiting UN diplomats on Sunday, even as a damaging row between him and the country’s president raised new fears for the troubled nation of the Horn of Africa.
The very public feud between Roble and President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, better known as Farmajo, comes as Somalia struggles to hold elections months behind and keep an Islamist insurgency at bay.
As senior politicians scrambled to defuse tensions and end the stalemate, Roble told a delegation led by United Nations Under-Secretary-General Amina Mohammed that the vote would go as planned.
The growing bitter feud threatened to throw an already fragile electoral process into deeper peril.
Farmajo’s four-year term expired in February, but was extended by parliament in April, sparking deadly fighting in the capital Mogadishu, with some rivals seeing it as a blatant takeover.
Roble concocted a new schedule for the polls, but the process was delayed and on Wednesday accused Farmajo of trying to claim “electoral and security responsibilities” from him.
On Sunday, as Roble sought to reassure UN diplomats about the vote, his office released a statement saying: “We pledge to hold the elections as scheduled, and other existing issues will have no effect on the elections. “.
“The Prime Minister informed the delegation of the progress made towards (the holding) of the elections (…) and of his commitment to (the holding) of peaceful and transparent elections,” the statement said.
Elections in Somalia follow a complex indirect pattern, where state legislatures and clan delegates choose lawmakers from the national parliament, who in turn choose the president.
The next phase is scheduled between October 1 and November 25.
Security threats
The row erupted last week when Roble sacked the Somali intelligence chief for his handling of a high-profile investigation into the disappearance of a young agent.
Farmajo quashed the prime minister, appointing the jettisoned intelligence official as his national security adviser.
Roble in turn accused the president of “obstructing” the investigation, and on Wednesday night he sacked the security minister and replaced him with a Farmajo critic.
The quarrel has raised the political temperature in Mogadishu, with a coalition of opposition presidential candidates claiming on Friday that it “supports the prime minister (…) and condemns the actions of the outgoing president”.
The United Nations assistance mission in Somalia last week urged the two leaders to end their feuds and focus on the elections.
Analysts say Somalia’s political crises have distracted attention from more pressing threats, including the violent al-Shabaab insurgency.
Al Qaeda allies were driven out of Mogadishu ten years ago, but retain control of entire swathes of the countryside and continue to carry out deadly attacks.
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