Saturday, June 04, 2016
Somalia President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud signs the Paris Agreement on climate change at United Nations Headquarters in Manhattan, New York, U.S., April 22, 2016/Reuters/Carlo Allegri
By Abdi Sheikh
MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somalia will choose a new parliament as planned later this year and the president and regional leaders will meet on June 20 to discuss how future lawmakers will be selected as there will not be a popular vote, the president's office said.
Somalia abandoned its plan to hold a popular vote in 2016 last July. The current government and parliament's term ends in August and new lawmakers are due to be chosen in the same month.
In its last elections, in 2012, members of parliament were chosen by elders and then those lawmakers chose Hassan Sheikh Mohamud as president. It was Somalia's first vote since 1991, when warlords ousted president Mohamed Siad Barre, plunging the country into years of war and chaos.
Last month parliament failed to approve a plan on how to run the next elections, forcing the president to issue a decree for indirect elections - elections other than by public vote - which was approved by a conference of regional leaders.
"The conference repeats the previous promise that there will be no extension term and the election will take place at the planned time," the president's office said in a statement late on Friday.
Procedural details would be discussed at another conference of regional leaders and the president on June 20 in Baidoa, the statement added.