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Premier consults over cabinet composition

    NAIROBI

    The prime minister of Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG), Ali Muhammad Gedi, is consulting widely as he tries to form a new cabinet that would reflect the diversity of Somali society, a government official said on Thursday.

    Gedi has been consulting "different groups from all political persuasions to form a government of national unity", Abdirahman Dinari, the government spokesman, said.

    President Abdullahi Yusuf dissolved Gedi's previous cabinet on Monday, accusing it of incompetence. This followed a day after three top officials of the TFG agreed to resolve their differences and reshuffle the cabinet.

    The leadership of Somalia's Transitional Federal Institutions (TFIs) has been divided, with Gedi on one side and Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden on the other, over talks with the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), which controls Mogadishu and much of the south.

    Gedi survived a no-confidence vote on 30 July brought by MPs apparently angered by his refusal to send a team to Khartoum to meet the UIC for reconciliation talks. This was followed by the resignations of at least 40 ministers and assistant ministers, who said they were leaving because Gedi was obstructing the reconciliation process by delaying talks between the UIC and the government.

    Dinari said Gedi would continue to reach out to his critics "but a cabinet list will be ready by this Saturday or Sunday at the latest".

    as/mw

    This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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