NAIROBI (AFP) — Somalia's parliament in exile endorsed Saturday the choice of Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke, a dual Canadian and Somali national, as the war-torn country's new prime minister, assembly speaker Aden Mohamed Nur said.
Nur said the parliament, meeting in Djibouti, approved Sharmarke's nomination by President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, by 410 votes in favour, with nine against and two abstentions.
The new prime minister, the son of a former president but a relative newcomer to Somalia's political scene, will face the daunting task of forming an inclusive government and restoring stability to the Horn of Africa country.
Sharmarke, 48, has worked with the United Nations in Sudan and Sierra Leone, holds Canadian citizenship and obtained degrees in political science and political economy from Carleton University in Ottawa.
He is a member of the same Darod subclan -- the Majarteen -- as former president Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, who resigned late last year.
According to Somalia's transitional charter, the president, the prime minister and the parliament speaker have to belong to three different major clans.
Sheikh Sharif, a young Islamist cleric who was elected as president by parliament late last month, is a member of the Hawiye clan.
The incoming prime minister's father, Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, was the last democratically-elected president of the Horn of Africa country.
He was assassinated in October 1969. Days later, Mohamed Siad Barre took power in a bloodless coup and remained there until his overthnrow in 1991 plunged the country into anarchy.
Sharmarke replaces Nur Hassan Hussein, who had led Somalia's transitional federal government since November 2007 and lost in the presidential election held last month in Djibouti.
According to the charter, Sharmarke will have a month from the moment of his official appointment to pick a cabinet, which will in turn have to be approved by parliament.
Mohamed Abdi Yusuf, a human rights activist in Mogadishu, said: "This is an opportunity that Somali people should benefit from because the nominated prime minister comes from a well-known political dynasty and I hope he won't miss chances to succeed peace."
"The nomination is the right choice because his father was a fair president so that I hope the son will follow him and will lead the country in the path of peace and prosperity," a resident of the capital, Amina Mohamed Issa, added.
Ethiopean Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, whose forces backed the government in driving an Islamic regime out of Mogadishu at the end of 2006, has greeted the the appointment of Sharif and Sharmarke with caution.
"The new Somalia president has assured as that his intention is to promote peace within Somalia and with its neighbours," he told journalists late Friday in Addis Ababa.
"We are happy with that," he said, "but it will be foolhardy to base state policy on some statement at some particular time by some individual (...) I don't think that anything Sheikh Sharif said can be taken as a final guarantee".
Source: AFP, Feb 14, 2009
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