BAIDOA, Somalia - Somalia's Southwest state assembly has on Wednesday anonymously approved the newly appointed cabinet by the regional president Abdiaziz Hassan Mohamed [Lafta-Gareen] early this month, Garowe Online reports.

A majority of 123 members out of 124 present in today’s seating approved the cabinet by a show of hands paving way for the first government for the newly created Federal State.

Only one parliamentarian rejected to vote in favour of the new council of ministers.

Twenty-five lawmakers were absent from the seventh session of the 2nd assembly meeting held in Baidoa city that saw the approval of the cabinet which consists of 25 ministers and their deputies.

Abdikadir Sharif Sheikhuna, the speaker of Southwest State parliament who announced the result of the voting, noted that the cabinet ministers have got the confidence vote and can take their respective offices from today.

The new cabinet becomes the first by the regional leader who was elected in December 2018 in a presidential election that has been marred by violence, vote-rigging, and alleged interference from the country's Federal Government in Mogadishu.

On January 1, 2019, the Somali government has expelled the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) and Head of UN Mission for Somalia (UNSOM), Nicholas Haysom and declared him “Persona Non-Grata.

Haysom was asked to leave the country after raising questions over the deaths of 15 civilians shot dead by police in Baidoa last Dec. and the legal bases of the arrest of Mukhtar Robow, ex-Al-Shabab deputy leader running regional presidency.

GAROWE ONLINE