Garowe Online (Garowe)
19 May 2008
Th e interim president of Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) is secretly backing a measure to extend the four-year term for Gen. Adde Muse, leader of the Puntland region in the northeast of the country, inside sources tell Garowe Online.
TFG President Abdullahi Yusuf, himself a former Puntland ruler, is secretly backing the initiative and has already begun holding preliminary discussions on the issue with traditional elders and politicians who wield influence in his home region of Puntland.
The Somali leader held closed-door talks with Puntland leader Gen. Muse in London in late April, where the two men discussed the one-year term extension at length, according to reliable sources who are familiar with the talks.
Gen. Muse's constitutional term in office ends in January 2009, when presidential elections are scheduled to be held in Puntland.
But President Yusuf wants the Puntland elections to be postponed until after the 2009 Somali presidential elections, marking the end of the transitional mandate for Yusuf's Ethiopian-backed interim government in Mogadishu.
According to our sources, the Somali president will cite the general situation in Somalia, which can be best described as chaotic, and will push forth an argument that it is an inappropriate time to hold elections in Puntland, the TFG's biggest domestic supporter.
Uncertainty over Somalia's presidential elections in 2009 is fuelling President Yusuf's desire to postpone the Puntland elections, according to our sources, for fear that instability in Puntland would create a much more unstable atmosphere across Somalia under which the ongoing anti-TFG insurgency will gain strength.
Somalia's president has played a pivotal role in the local affairs of the Puntland administration under Gen. Muse since early 2005.
But President Yusuf has never publicly acknowledged or condemned major problems that have virtually crippled the Puntland government, including rising criminal activities, official corruption and economic woes and hyperinflation that has led to violent street riots across Puntland's major towns.
Last month, Puntland Finance Minister Mohamed "Gaagaab" Ali held a private luncheon for 18 members of parliament in the port city of Bossaso, where he proposed the one-year term extension plan being pursued by the Muse administration.
It is not clear how the local population will respond to a term extension for the incumbent Puntland ruler, who has been criticized for weak leadership and held responsible for the worsening situation in the region since his rise to power.
But in mid-2001, then-Puntland ruler Yusuf wanted to extend his term in office but faced stiff resistance from local clans and eventually led Gen. Muse to leave his peaceful home in Canada and wage war against Yusuf.
Although Muse lost that war badly, he later reconciled with Yusuf and supported the latter's election to the Somali presidency in October 2004.
Muse is deeply unpopular with local clans, many of whom have accused the Puntland leader of catastrophic failure in security and economic issues.
Under the Muse administration, the Puntland government lost control of the key town of Las Anod to the rival separatist region of Somaliland.
Piracy and human trafficking activities have been on the increase, attracting international attention and prompting foreign military intervention.
Most recently, the Muse government has been accused of detaining Somali civilians and handing them over to Ethiopian intelligence services without being charged with any crime against Puntland.
Critics said that the one-year term extension proposal, if pursued, might create new security problems for the region, thereby placing Yusuf's fragile government in Mogadishu under more duress.
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