MOGADISHU (Somaliguardian) – Somalia’s Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble on Tuesday hit back at the President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo for saying his ineptitude has led to successive delays to the country’s elections and argued that the Horn of Africa country’s embattled leader has been stonewalling efforts to hold elections agreeable to all sides.
“The Prime Minister of the Federal Republic of Somalia HE Mohamed Hussein Roble is deeply concerned about a letter issued in this morning by the President’s Office. That statement is one that the President is deliberately disrupting the process of the Country’s Election, which is at a critical stage,” Somali Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble said in a statement.
The letter was timed to coincide with a scheduled meeting of the National Consultative conference, which is intended to address issues on the transparency of ongoing elections, in an apparent attempt by the “President to foil the meeting of the Council which clearly shows that the President has never become happy and will never be with the conduct of an election agreeable to the Somali Public”, he added.
Somalia’s President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo, in a statement issued overnight on Sunday, called for a new consultative summit to pick a new Prime Minister, who would oversee timely and credible elections, accusing the incumbent Mohamed Hussein Roble of failing to undertake his mandate, in what former Interior Minister Abdi Farah Juha and some opposition figures described as a new “coup” as the country still struggles to recover from the scars left behind by Siad Barre’s takeover of power five decades ago. read more
Weeks after striking Qatar-mediated agreement with Farmajo, Roble now claims that the President has dedicated “time, wealth and brain to remaining in office while attempting that the election serves his own interests or otherwise pave the way for illegal term extension”.
It comes days after traditional leaders from Mudulood and Habargidir clans rallied their support behind the Prime Minister as wrangling heats up, saying that they would back him with military and political strength.
In a sharp tone and an apparent attempt to oust the President, Roble said it is time for the Somali Public and the International Community to “collectively thwart individuals threatening the peace and the state-building of Somalia to prevent the country from plunging into political and security crisis”.
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