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NAIROBI, 22 Jul 2004 (IRIN) - A day after the deadline for all Somali
groups to show mediators at a reconciliation conference how they
would share seats in a proposed parliament, delegates from two of the
country's four major clans were still haggling over how to distribute
the posts, sources close to the mediators said.
"If the Darods and Dirs don't present their distribution lists [to
mediators of the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Drought and
Development (IGAD)] by Thursday, the Arbitration Committee will be
asked to do it for them," the source told IRIN.
Foreign ministers of IGAD member states, who met in Nairobi on 15 and
16 July, had given all clans until 20 July to hand in their lists
showing how the seats they had been allocated in the proposed
275-member Somali Transitional Federal Assembly would be distributed
among their subclans.
The ministers have scheduled the inauguration of the parliament for
30 July in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
Each of Somalia's four major clans has been allocated 61 seats in the
proposed parliament, while an alliance of minority clans will have 31
MPs. A Speaker and two deputy Speakers to be elected from among the
parliamentarians will preside over the election of the president.
Two clans, the Hawiye and the Digil-Mirifle, have already presented
their lists to the IGAD Facilitation Committee which is steering the
Somali peace process. The Arbitration Committee had also drawn up the
list for the alliance of minority clans, the source said. The
subclans would be required to nominate members to fill positions
allocated to them - another potentially contentious process.
The source told IRIN on Wednesday that subclans among the Darod and
Dir clans had so far failed to agree on how to share the seats set
aside for them. "It is an intricate process, during which some
subclans complain that they are not being given enough seats," he
said.
The mediators have urged the delegates to honour a 31 July 2004
deadline set by IGAD for the end of Phase III, the last stage of the
peace talks.
Somalia has been without an effective government since 1991 when the
regime of Muhammad Siyad Barre was toppled and the country plunged
into anarchy and violence.
IGAD groups Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Sudan and Uganda.
Somalia is also a member, but is not fully represented because it
lacks a functioning government.
The IGAD-sponsored Somali National Reconciliation Conference began in
October 2002 in the western Kenyan town of Eldoret, and was moved to
Nairobi in February 2003.
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