Somalia president to address parliament after term extension rejected

MOGADISHU, Somalia - Somalia’s term-ended President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo will address the national assembly on Saturday after his two-year-term extension was widely rejected by the country's stakeholders and the international partners. 

Sources told Garowe Online that the outgoing president in his speech at the Parliament today will ask the lawmakers to nullify the illegal extension. Reports say some MPs who support Farmajo will ask him to resign as he has failed to lead Somalia to an election.

The outgoing prime minister Mohamed Hussein Roble supported the decision by the Federal States to say no to the extension and called for talks on the deadlock over the elections in Somalia.

The poll has been delayed twice since last December, resulting in the worst political crisis in the country that led to clashes between government forces and opposition fighters in Mogadishu last week.

Somalia’s lower house of parliament is expected to rescind the resolution to extend Farmajo’s term that the Senate rejected the move as unconstitutional since it lacked the approval of both chambers of the parliament.

In his last Tuesday Televised address to the nation, Farmajo has pledged to go back to the negotiating table as his opponents accused him of refusing to leave office after serving his four-year mandate ended last February.

The illegal term extension has angered foreign donors, including the US, UK, and EU, who have funded Farmajo’s government in the efforts to rebuild the nation and bring back peace and stability after three decades of conflict.

The fight for power has fragmented the country's national army into clan lines as political leaders locked horns over how to proceed with the parliamentary and presidential elections. 

Somalia is sliding back into conflict. The soldiers from the national army are fighting for opposition leaders from their own clans and wrested control of parts of the capital, engaging in a gunfight with fellow government forces.

GAROWE ONLINE