MOGADISHU, Somalia Nov 6 (Garowe Online) - Somalia's interim government has named a regional council to prepare the country's capital city to elect its next mayor, Radio Garowe reported Thursday.

Seats in the new Banadir Regional Council were distributed along clan lines, but some local clans have complained about the number of seats assigned to them.

The 69-seat council was divided among Hawiye, Darod, Dir, Digil and Mirifle and the "Fifth Clan" – an alliance of minority clan groups.

Two Hawiye sub-clans – the Abgaal and the Hawadle, who received 15 and 5 seats, respectively – have complained publicly that the new council seat distribution is "unfair."

"It is unacceptable that the Banadir government is divided into 4.5. Formula," said Shire Dalfa, a spokesman for clan elders representing the Abgaal sub-clan that has traditionally inhabited Mogadishu and the Banadir region.

The 4.5 Formula is the power-sharing foundation of the Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG), which divides power to four major clans and an alliance of smaller clans, or the "Fifth Clan."

But Mr. Dalfa noted that other Somali towns were not divided according to the 4.5 Formula. Mogadishu is the national capital and has historically included Somalis from all clans in the local government.

Separately, Hawadle sub-clan elders told a press conference in Mogadishu that five seats is "not enough" for the sub-clan that traditionally lives in the central Hiran region.

Last month, leaders from the East African regional bloc Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) gave the TFG about two weeks to appoint a new mayor for Mogadishu. Full story

Mohamed Dheere, a former warlord, was fired in July by Prime Minister Nur "Adde" Hassan Hussein, a move that plunged the TFG into months of dispute until IGAD leaders intervened.

Source: Garowe Online