In Somalia, the new president elected a month ago finally appointed his prime minister on Wednesday. Hamza Abdi Barre is therefore the country’s 21st head of government. This deputy, from the Ogaden clan as the Constitution requires, replaces Mohammed Hussein Roble, who has managed current affairs since the election of the head of state on May 15 and had previously supervised the electoral process.
His appointment was eagerly awaited and, for several days, it had been announced every morning as imminent. It is now done, during a press briefing convened on Wednesday evening at Villa Somalia, President Hassan Cheikh Mohamoud appointed Hamza Abdi Barre Prime Minister of the Federal Government. Standing at his side, the Head of State set the perimeter of his mandate: drought, security, reconciliation and external relations.
Before being elected as a member of the Federal Parliament last December, this 48-year-old management graduate had never held a political office. Originally from Kismayo, he was for a long time the head of the Independent Electoral Commission of Jubaland, a strategic state in the south of the country, bordering Kenya, to which he is said to be close.
But he was above all close to the new president Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud in recent years and a member of his political party, says a Somali journalist. For the latter, it is therefore a prudent choice on the part of the Head of State, “who prefers to have a faithful with him than a potential rival”, he says, since it is ” the rivalry with its young Prime Minister which caused the fall by outgoing President Mohamed Farmajo.