MOGADISHU —
Somalia on Friday extended its deadline to finish
voting for the lower house of parliament, the latest in a series of election
delays that risk starving the country of budget funds.
اضافة اعلان
The fragile Horn of
Africa nation has struggled to
hold elections, with polls delayed by more than a year, bedeviled by political
squabbling and a simmering Islamist insurgency.
The lower house elections were due to be completed
on Friday and pave the way for lawmakers to pick a president.
But Deputy Information Minister Abdirahman Yusuf
said the deadline had now been revised to March 15.
“The National
Consultative Council... expressed their disappointment with the fact that they
could not meet the deadline,” the minister said in a televised address.
US Secretary of State
Antony Blinken on Friday said
the delay was driving “political instability” in the country and announced an
extension of visa restrictions on officials and others “responsible for, or
complicit in” undermining Somalia’s electoral process.
The
United States, which first imposed the
restrictions on February 8, last month also threatened to levy sanctions if the
country missed Friday’s deadline.
Somalia’s announcement comes just days after the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned it might have to stop its program in
the country if the polls were postponed again.
Elections were originally scheduled for a year ago
but were delayed when President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, better known by his
nickname Farmajo, tried to extend his term.
Farmajo’s four-year mandate expired in February last
year but was controversially extended by parliament in April, triggering deadly
gun battles on the streets of Mogadishu.
Prime Minister
Mohamed Hussein Roble then brokered a
new election timetable, but in the months that followed, a bitter rivalry
between him and Farmajo derailed the process again.
The international community has voiced fears that
election delays, as well as the feud between Farmajo and Roble, could set off
new troubles for a country that has lacked stable governance for three decades.
Somalia’s elections follow a complex indirect model.
Nearly 30,000 clan delegates are assigned to choose
275 MPs for the lower house while state legislatures elect senators for the
upper house, a process that has now been completed.
Once the lower house election is concluded, both
assemblies vote for the next president.
So far, about 175
members of the lower house have been elected.
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