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| Africa Horn |
| Somalis told to be ready to elect president this week |
| 2009-01-29 |
| (Xinhua) -- The Somali presidential election may be held this week and the proposed constitutional amendment to extend the one-month deadline is foregone after pressure from the international community, officials from the Somali transitional government and a major opposition faction who are now attending the on-going talks in Djibouti, said on Tuesday. Diplomats from African and western countries at the power-sharing talks in Djibouti has insisted that the Somali presidential election be held within the timeframe set in the Somali Transitional Federal Charter, Mohamed Omar Dalha, deputy speaker of Somali parliament told local Shabelle radio in Mogadishu by phone from Djibouti. The thirty-day deadline for the election of a president expires on Wednesday as former president Abdulahi Yusuf Ahmed stepped down on Dec. 29. The Somali Transitional Federal Government and the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS) agreed last October on the outline of enlarging Somalia's Transitional Federal Parliament and forming Government of National Unity. On Monday, the Somali lawmakers approved the expansion of the parliament to include members of the opposition faction, the ARS, who will be sworn in on Tuesday. The enlarged parliament is expected to chose a speaker and a president for Somalia in time for the African Union summit in the Ethiopian capital Addis Abba early in February, Abdurrahman Abdishakur Warsame, a senior member of ARS told the local Horn Afrik radio. "We are expected to swear in the newly elected president for Somalia next Saturday and then the president could get down to work to save the country as soon as possible," said Warsame, one of the newly nominated opposition MPs. |
| Posted by:Fred |