New PM to lead Somali transitional govt

2000-10-09 07:17

Mogadishu, Somalia - Somali President Abdiqasim Salad Hassan appointed a prime minister on Sunday to lead his government through a three-year transitional period.

Hassan appointed Ali Khalif Gallayr, a minister of trade under the former regime of Mohamed Siad Barre, in his residence in neighbouring Djibouti where Somalia's new 245-member parliament currently sits, Somali officials said.

The president and the assembly were elected in August following a Djiboutian-sponsored peace process that began in May.

Gallayr, who is a member of the Darod clan, Hassan and the legislators are now expected to move to Mogadishu within the next two to three days to consolidate the new government.

Once in the Somali capital, the prime minister is expected to nominate 25 ministers to sit in his Cabinet, which will have to be endorsed by the president and assembly, officials told The Associated Press.

Somalia has had no central government since opposition leaders joined forces to oust dictator Siad Barre in 1991.

Since Siad Barre's fall, the Horn of Africa nation has been synonymous with chaos and violence as faction leaders carved the country into fiefdoms. The election of Hassan, also a former minister in Siad Barre's regime, and assembly has created optimism throughout Somalia that stability could return.

The main threat to the process is a number of faction leaders who have opposed the Djibouti peace process. However, Hussein Mohamed Aidid, a prominent faction leader in southern Mogadishu, said last week that he and other faction leaders were willing to have peaceful negotiations with Hassan.

Aidid, who met Hassan in Libya at the end of September, said the talks could include the leaders of the northern regions of Somaliland and Puntland, President Mohamed Ibrahim Egal and Colonel Abdullahi Yussuf, respectively, who have also opposed the peace process.

Although he said he did not recognise the new assembly, Aidid said Hassan and the legislators were welcome to go to Mogadishu.

Hassan made a brief, triumphant visit to Mogadishu in August, but he has not returned since and many observers expected the assembly to move to the central town of Baidoa for security reasons.

- SAPA