Somalian leaders on Sunday agreed to complete parliamentary elections by February 25, after a couple of delays that have threatened the stability of the country, reported France 24.
The leaders reached the agreement on Sunday after several rounds of talks hosted by Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble with state leaders aimed at ending the election crisis.
“The ongoing election of the House of the People (lower house) will be completed between the periods of January 15 and February 25, 2022,” the Somalian leaders said in a statement issued after the talks in Mogadishu.
Somalia’s Prime Minister Roble and President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed have long been at loggerheads over the long-delayed elections. The dispute between the two leaders flared last month when Farmajo suspended Roble, accusing him of corruption for allegedly interfering in a probe into a scandal over army-owned land.
The prime minister defied the suspension order and accused the president of violating the constitution and of an “attempted coup”. Farmaajo, whose four-year mandate expired in February 2021, also faced calls by the opposition to vacate his office.
His tenure as the president was controversially extended by parliament in April, resulting in deadly gun battles on the streets of Mogadishu, with some rivals viewing it as a power grab.
Roble then came up with a new election timetable, but in the months that followed, the two Somalian leaders’ feud derailed the polls again. They only agreed to end the rivalry in October and issued a unified call for the glacial election process to accelerate, with voting for the lower house starting in November. The parliamentary elections were scheduled to be completed by December 24.
Due to the ongoing political crisis, the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab militant group continues to conduct deadly attacks. Last month, the militants raided a town near the capital.
