Sharif Hassan Shaikh Adan

Baidoa, Somalia, 18/01/2007 - Somalia's parliament yesterday ousted powerful speaker Sharif Hassan Shaikh Adan, who split with the president and prime minister late last year over his peace overtures to rival Islamists.

"The speaker is out," Somali legislator Ali Basha told Reuters by phone from the parliament in a converted grain warehouse in the provincial town of Baidoa. He said 183 voted against Adan, while eight voted in his favour and one abstained.

The ouster of Adan was widely seen as an attempt by the interim government to consolidate power after its troops, backed by Ethiopia's military, ran the Islamists out of strongholds in Mogadishu and most of southern Somalia at the New Year.

"They want to send a clear signal to those who supported the Islamic courts that they don't have a place in the present political dispensation. But that may be a miscalculation," Somali expert Matt Bryden said.

President Abdullahi Yousuf's administration is being urged by many to reach out to opponents to ensure peace and stability in the chaotic Horn of Africa nation.

Member of parliament Mohammad Esak Fanah, who opposed the motion, said it would foster conflict. "What happened in the parliament today is a new problem for Somalia. Somalia needs a reconciliation process," he said.

The speaker, who had close ties to the Mogadishu businessmen who financed the Somalia Islamic Courts Council (SICC), made several attempts to strike peace deals between the government and the Islamist movement when it controlled most of the south.

But his manoeuvres incurred the wrath of Yousuf and Prime Minister Ali Mohammad Gedi, who said the power-sharing deal he cut did not have any government authority. Adan's overtures preceded the late December offensive against the Islamists.

No-confidence vote

The speaker, who has not been in parliament for months and was in Brussels on Tuesday to meet EU aid chief Louis Michel, could not be reached for comment. Local media reports said he was in Djibouti, but that could not immediately be confirmed.

Ebrahim Adan Hassan, one of 31 members of parliament (MPs) who proposed the no-confidence vote, blamed Adan for rifts in the administration. "The speaker was at the head of the conflict in parliament for the last two years," Hassan said.

Officials said a new speaker would be appointed in 15 days.

Source: Reuters