Hiiraan Online
Monday, May 23, 2016
Michael Keating, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General (SRSG) for Somalia
MOGADISHU (HOL) – Somalia’s international partners have welcomed Somali president’s decree which bypassed the parliament which resisted calls to approve the electoral process submitted by the government last month and called for an election in the country.
The outgoing parliament has delayed a vote to approve the election process multiple times, with the last one being on Saturday, raising concerns by the international community over the protracted process for the forthcoming presidential elections.
“The international community notes that the decree will enable the technical preparation and implementation of the electoral process without further delay.” said a joint statement by the United Nations, the African Union (AU), the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), the European Union (EU), Ethiopia, Italy, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States
“It is in accordance with the repeated commitments of the Federal Government, the Federal Parliament, the National Leadership Forum and other key actors and institutions that there should be no extension of the constitutionally mandated term limits of the legislature and the executive.” The statement said,
Commenting on the development, Michael Keateng, the United Nations envoy to Somalia said that by decreeing on the electoral process, president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and his government acted the electoral timelines.
“Somalia’s international partners welcome and fully support the step that President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and the Federal Government have taken,” he said.
He however alluded that the president’s decision served as a ‘last’ option as lawmakers continued resisted government’s repeated requests to secure a parliamentary approval for the electoral process.
“We all would have preferred a different scenario for the endorsement of the model. But intense engagement among politicians, especially in the last few weeks, made it evident that the Federal Parliament would have had great difficulty in agreeing on and legalizing the model.” He said.
The country’s major donors including European Union and the United States warned that failure to act quickly would ‘jeopardize’ the Somali political process and set Somalia several years back."
According to Somalia’s Provisional Federal Constitution, adopted in 2012, the mandates of the Somali Federal Parliament and of the government would come to an end in August and September 2016, respectively.
The international community which is spearheading efforts aimed at restoring peace and order into the Somalia which is recovering from decades of war mandated the current government to lead the country into general elections following the election of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, a new parliament and the adoption of a new constitution in 2012.