MOGADISHU (SD) – Somali parliament meeting has today descended into chaos as lawmakers locked horns over what some opposition lawmakers claimed to be Farmajo’s plan to seek extension just hours after UK warned against any act to extend the mandate of the administration.
According videos serviced social media, the parliament meeting ended in disarray with both opposition and pro-government MPs trading accusations that each group was responsible for failure of the session.
Several MPs who are opposing the government argued that they feared the Lower House may have wanted to force “unilateral” term extension for the executive and the president.
“Prior to today’s session, the speaker of the Lower House informed number of MPs that 17-Sep deal over the electoral process collapsed and the parliament will approve extension for both the parliament and the president whose terms ended months ago,” said Mahad Salad, an opposition MP.
On the other hand, Abdullahi Moalim Nur, a pro-opposition MP accused the parliament leadership of trying to suppress the opposition MPs by threatening to deploys soldiers in the House.
“The Speaker Mohamed Mursal confirms us that he demanded to deploy the 200-armed personnel and he threatens he will demand many more and he will take personally the responsibility of any damage done by these armed AS defectors,” Nur said in a twitter post.
The meeting of the parliamentarians comes as talks between the leaders of five regional states kicked off at a hotel in Mogadishu Airport to discuss ways to break electoral deadlock that forces elections to be postponed.
In a statement on Saturday, UK government called on Somali political stakeholders to come together and reach consensus on implementing the electoral process, according to the model agreed on 17 September and the recommendations of the 16 February Baidoa Technical Committee.
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