President Mohamud picks close ally, Hamza Abdi Barre as new PM
GOOBJOOG NEWS|MOGADISHU: Hamza Abdi Barre, a long-standing ally of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has been elected the 21st Prime Minister of Somalia.
President Mohamud unveiled the new PM at a brief ceremony in Villa Somalia in a departure from the tradition of late-night announcements that have characterized Somali government’s high-profile pronouncements.
Barre becomes the first PM from the Ogaden sub-clan. He was recently elected MP in Jubaland and before that, he served as the chairman of Jubaland Electoral Commission between 2019 and 2020. Barre served as a senior advisor to the Federal Ministry of Constitutional Affairs from 2015 to 2019.
His relations with President Mohamud date over a decade. He served as Secretary-General of the defunct Peace and Development Party between 2011 and 2017. President Mohamud was the chairman of PDP which changed name to the Union for Peace and Development Party (UPD) which is also headed by President Mohamud.
Before joining politics, Barre was variously involved in the education sector where he served as the Secretary-General of the Formal Private Education Network in Somalia (FPENS) an umbrella of private schools which crucially filled the gap following a collapse of the public education in the 1990s in Somalia.
Barre holds an MBA from the International Islamic University of Malaysia and a BA in Management from the University of Science and Technology in Yemen. The 48-year-old politician now awaits approval by the Lower House before he can take up the post.