Somali new speaker, Jawari, tasked on presidential polls

SOMALIA’S newly chosen parliamentary speaker, Mohamed Osman Jawari, has been tasked by diplomats to ensure that presidential elections take place in the war-ravaged country without delay.

The United Nations-backed process to set up a new administration, which will culminate in lawmakers choosing the country’s new president, is the latest bid to end two decades of instability in the Horn of Africa nation.

Jawari, a veteran politician and former minister, who helped draft a new constitution for Somalia, was elected speaker on Tuesday by fellow lawmakers.

“This is a moment of progress and optimism”, UN special representative for Somalia Augustine Mahiga said in a statement, calling for presidential elections to take place “within 10 days”.

There is no fixed timetable for the vote, having already missed an August 20 deadline, and bitter arguments have begun between challengers for the country’s top job, divided along Somalia’s notoriously fractious clan lines.

the guardian