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Somali Prime Minister Gedi resigns

AFP, BAIDOA, Somalia

Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi resigned yesterday following a long-running feud with the president, who accused him of failing to deal effectively with a violent Islamist insurgency in the capital.

Gedi personally handed his resignation to President Abdullahi Ahmed Yusuf, a top presidential aide said on condition of anonymity.

"The two of them discussed the future of the nation for a while" at the president's office in Baidoa, a town which houses parliament and is located some 250km from the capital Mogadishu, the aide said.

Gedi had been expected to resign in a speech to a special session of parliament later yesterday.

"The whole idea is to pave the way for the smooth running of a new government," said one official from Gedi's office. "Gedi does not want to become a liability."

Gedi, 55, took the helm of the transitional federal government in November 2004 but has often been at loggerheads with Yusuf, with both men coming from Somalia's two main, rival clans.

"The prime minister and the president, with the help of friendly countries, have reached a deal to end the political confusion," a close aide to Yusuf said.

Yusuf had been pushing parliament to oust Gedi for failing to end the Islamist-led insurgency in Mogadishu, draft a new constitution and bolster the nation's federal government.

Gedi arrived in Baidoa yesterday after spending several days holed up at the Sheraton hotel in Addis Ababa, apparently in last-ditch consultations to save his job.

Critics blame him for being behind the decision to invite Ethiopian forces into Somalia to help rescue the struggling interim government in its battle against an Islamist militia.

The Islamist administration, which had controlled large parts of the country, was defeated earlier this year, and remnants of the movement and tribal allies have waged a guerrilla conflict in the capital Mogadishu.

One of main sources of opposition to Gedi's government has come from his own Hawiye clan, which is dominant in Mogadishu and is the largest in the country.

Yusuf is from what has now become the breakaway northern state of Puntland and comes from the rival Darod clan, the country's second largest.

"We are in a system where there are no longer any institutional rules ... and serious shortcomings in the transitional charter," a senior official from Gedi's office said on condition of anonymity.

"The premier wants a democratic, secular and transparent state ... Now we're headed towards a ... state run by a predatory family," the official said.

The nation of 10 million has lacked an effective government since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre touched off a fierce internal conflict that has defied more than a dozen peace initiatives.
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