PM Khaire ousted in Villa Somalia backed no-confidence vote

Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire who came to office in 2017 and survived the longest in recent memory has been relieved of his duties.

The Lower House delivered a near-unanimous blow to the PM Saturday voting 170-8 to remove him from office in what appears to have had the backing of MPs from the government side.

Speaker Mohamed Mursal summed up reasons for Khaire’s removal thus: failure to deliver a one-person-one-vote, stalled constitutional review process, inability to marshal parliament to define the status of Banaadir region within the country’s governance structure and failure to create space for participation of political parties in political processes.

While delivering the verdict, Mursal called on President Mohamed Farmaajo to move in swiftly and appoint a new Prime Minister. Parliament must approve a new PM  and a new cabinet.

Khaire who remained in Dhusamareb after the meeting there with Federal Member State leaders and attended by President Mohamed Farmaajo came to office in March 2017 and has waded through the maze of political machinations in Mogadishu which have seen most Prime Ministers hounded out of office by the end of the first year.

Khaire is touted as a key presidential candidate in the upcoming poll. He dismissed the announcement early this month by the electoral commission NIEC that universal elections would not be held this year and called on his minister to prepare for the elections.

Sources have told Goobjoog News the move to remove Khaire from office had the blessings of Villa Somalia after he fell out with his boss-Farmaajo over elections. Though Farmaajo said last week he was not intent on staying longer in office past time, he has not spoken about the decision by NIEC to rule out elections this year.

GOOBJOOG NEWS