Thirty-one Somali lawmakers fired over absenteeism

People stand at the site of wreckage after clashes between Somali government troops backed by Ethiopian army and insurgents on Friday night near the former defence ministry building in Mogadishu April 14, 2007. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

NAIROBI , April 18, 2007 -- Somalia's transitional parliament has fired its former speaker and 30 other lawmakers for failing to attend sessions in recent months, a lawmaker confirmed on Wednesday.

Awad Ashara, the chairman of the parliamentary foreign relations committee, said the lawmakers were fired for failing to attend sessions in recent months as the government moves to assert its control of the legislature.

The parliament warned absent lawmakers last month that they would lose their seats if they did not begin showing up for parliamentary sessions.

Those fired Tuesday include Sharif Hassan Sheik Aden, who was removed as speaker in January for holding unauthorized negotiations with the government's Islamist rivals.

"All those parliamentarians removed are allied to the former Speaker Sheikh Aden and are currently out of the country. They are in Eritrea," Ashara told Xinhua by telephone from Baidoa.

The former speaker Aden who was removed from his post in January this year is seen as being too close to Eritrea, which the transitional government and the United States have accused of supporting members of the ousted Supreme Council of Islamic Courts(SCIC), a radical Islamic group that had controlled most of southern Somalia, including the capital, for six months until the end of last year.

Eritrea 's archrival Ethiopia backed the transitional government in ousting the Islamic movement in December from Mogadishu and its strongholds.

Ashara said about 150 lawmakers approved Tuesday's decision. The transitional parliament, which was firmed in Kenya in 2004 as part of efforts to establish a central rule in the war-torn nation, has 275 members.

That government has struggled to assert authority despite the intervention of Ethiopian troops who helped defeat the Islamists late last year.

Somalia has lacked an effective central government since warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siyad Barre in 1991.

Source: Xinhua