A former President of Somalia, Ali Mahdi Mohamed, threatened the incumbent, Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo, that he…
A former President of Somalia, Ali Mahdi Mohamed, threatened the incumbent, Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo, that he will rather take up arms against him than tolerate delayed elections and/or a term extension to his presidency.
“I advise that you hold the scheduled elections on time. There is no Somali who would countenance undue delays at this juncture of time. Do not plunge the country in a civil war,” he said.
Ali Mahdi pointed out that the government in power was mandated to serve 4 years and no more.
“I am not an active politician at the moment,” he said, adding “But I want a government that leads us fairly, justly. If I don’t find that, my white gun is still cocked and ready to fire. My statement on the matter is crystal clear”.
Ali Mahdi was speaking on Monday at the opening of a three-day conference of his Mudulood clan in the capital Mogadishu.
Many believe that the expulsion of the Prime Minister, Hassan Ali Kheyrre, last week through an engineered, hardly legal no-confidence vote of the parliament, was designed to prepare the way for a two-year extension of the term to the President after which the ousted PM can stand as a presidential candidate undeterred on Qatari support.
The opposition, mostly comprising leaders of the Mudulood clan, stand no chance if the Qatari machinations prevail – and they know it.
The international community which bankrolls the reigning government’s payrolls (executive, judiciary, legislative, army, policing,etc.) has sharply criticized the ill-veiled intentions of President Farmajo calling the PM removal un-constitutional and a slip that augured ill for their relations with the government they built and maintained on billions of dollars of their taxpayers.
