(Xinhua) -- Somali parliamentarians meeting in Djibouti City has overwhelmingly endorsed the enlargement of the legislative assembly to include opposition members in accordance with a power sharing deal reached last year, reports reaching here said Monday. Somali lawmakers have held their session in the Djibouti People' s Assembly in the capital where 220 members of parliament converged to approve the crucial legislation that will pave the way for an inclusive parliament and a National Unity Government.
Sheik Adan Madoobe, speaker of the parliament and the acting president of Somalia who chaired the session, announced after the vote on the enlargement motion that out of the 220 members present211 voted in favor of the motion, 6 voted against while three abstained.
The parliament is expected to amend the country's interim charter to allow for the extension of the one-month deadline for the election of the president which will expire on Wednesday, after former Somali leader Abdulahi Yusuf Ahmed resigned on December 29.
Under an agreement reached between a major opposition faction, the Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia (ARS), and the Somali transitional government, the membership of the current 275-member Somali parliament will be doubled to include 200 members from ARS and 75 from Somali civil society groups, women and diasporas.
Reports from Djibouti say that the new 200 opposition members of parliament will be sworn in Tuesday while the remaining 75 will be included at a later date when their allocation is agreed upon.
Meanwhile in Baidoa, tension mounts as uncertainty prevails following the withdrawal of Ethiopian troops from the town which has been the seat of the Somali transitional parliament for the past three years.
Two people have been killed and four others wounded after a shootout between Somali government forces and local militias vying for control of strategic locations as they prepare to confront a possible assault on the town by insurgent fighters stationed around it.
Both Somali government officials and Islamist commanders have said they want peaceful resolution of the standoff in the town which is witnessing widespread looting of government properties including the presidential residence and parliament house.