Somali Prime Minister Mohamed Ghedi on Monday named a leaner
cabinet of 31 ministers, weeks after President Abdullahi Yusuf
disbanded a bloated cabinet of 92 ministers, accusing it of failing
to deliver on the peace pledges.
Somali politicians familiar with the new cabinet said most of
the former key members and allies who remained loyal to Premier
Ghedi retained their posts.
Ghedi said that he had done extensive consultations with the
president and the powerful Speaker Sherif Hassan Aden while naming
the new team, whose main assignment is to restore unity in the
unstable country.
The old cabinet was disbanded after a series of resignations and
an attempted bid to nullify Ghedi's legitimacy to rule through a
no-confidence vote, which was defeated after the opposition failed
to raise the required 133 votes.
But the new cabinet did not include representatives from the
Union of Islamic Courts, who were widely expected to join the
government ahead of formal peace mediation efforts in Khartoum, in
which the Islamic Courts leadership were expected to prevail.
(Xinhua News Agency August 22, 2006)
