Somalia to complete parliamentary polls by February 25
After several delays, the two top leaders in Somalia, who have been going head to head for nearly a year, reach an agreement on the elections.
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Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo and Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble
Somali leaders announced Sunday they had reached an agreement to complete parliamentary elections by February 25 following repeated delays that put stability on the line in the already troubled country.
The leaders struck the deal following several-day-long talks, which Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble hosted with state leaders. The talks were held with the intention of ending an impasse over the elections after they had been delayed several times before.
Prime Minister Roble and President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed have long been at odds over the delay in the elections, while experts, as well as the public, feared that their dispute could spark state-wide violence.
The quarrel between the two figures went back to the first square in December when the president suspended Roble, who he had handpicked as prime minister in September 2020.
President Mohamed's four-year term expired in February, but Parliament extended his tenure in April, a decision that sparked civil violence in Mogadishu, with some political rivals seeing the move as a flagrant seizure of power.
Following the parliament's extension of the president's term, Roble brokered a new election timetable. However, the feud between the two impeded the election process, delaying the vote again.
The two leaders agreed to make peace in October, jointly calling for the acceleration of the election process.
Their squabble spilled out into the open again when Mohamed suspended Roble, allegedly over corruption. The president accused his premier of interfering in a probe into a scandal over army-owned land.
