Thursday, December 22, 2011

Fistfight erupts again in Somalia parliament

Somali lawmakers have for the second time in a week engaged in fistfight following a sharp division that emerged after a vote of no confidence was passed against Somali Transitional Federal Parliament Speaker Sharif Hassan whom the legislators accused of slowing down parliament proceedings.

Security forces denied the lawmakers entry into parliament that saw the MPs engage in confrontations with the law enforces with the Somali police finally allowing the lawmakers to progress inside the chambers.

On Wednesday 290 Somali legislators met in parliament under the leadership of the second Deputy Somali speaker as well as the recently nominated speaker Madobe Nunow with the legislators raising their views to the deputy speaker over the latest parliament row.

MPs accused Somali leaders and especially the President and Prime minister for turning a deaf ear to the parliament crisis and called on the Somali leaders to come up with a lasting solution to the latest crisis that has paralyzed parliamentary operations.

Political infighting has plagued the TFG since 2004; this infighting led many prominent politicians to resign including former TFG President Abdullahi Yusuf, who resigned in 2008 after four years in office.

Three TFG Prime Ministers have also resigned since 2004 as a result of political disputes, with the most recent resignation of Prime Minister Mohamed in June leading to the Kampala Accord that paved the way for the UN-backed Roadmap peace process to end the Somali transitional period by August, 2012.

Despite political infighting among MPs of the TFP and the possibility of delaying the Somalia Constitutional conference both President and the Speaker of Parliament arrived in Garowe town ready for the second phase of the UN sponsored consultative conference.

It's barely a week after 280 legislators voted out the Somali parliament speaker through a vote of no confidence that has ignited a series of heated debate with the Speaker clinging to his sit leaving the Somali parliamentarians divided into two groups.

Source: Press TV

No comments:

Post a Comment