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Roble meets warring Somaliland factions again amid poll stalemate

Storyline:National News

GOOBJOOG NEWS|MOGADISHU: Outgoing senate speaker Abdi Hashi and his political rival deputy prime minister Mahdi Guled Sunday met with Prime Minister Mohamed Roble for another round of talks as efforts to have the two resolve their differences on the electoral stalemate hit a brick wall.

The meeting came a day after Hashi threatened to conduct parallel elections should the Guled faction proceed with the exercise.

“If there is news in the market that someone is going to vote, you are the ones who have the right to vote and will produce the MPs,” Hashi told his side in a meeting.

According to a statement from the government spokesman Mohamed Moalimuu, Hashi asked for a day to resolve the long-running row with Guled. The two leaders have held a series of meeting with Roble to resolve the dispute but to no avail.

According to the May 27 Mogadishu Agreement which ended the political circus over elections in the country, both Mahdi and Guled were allocated six slots each in the federal and state level interim teams. The Office of the Prime got three slots.

The two sides however failed to elect a joint chairperson for their State Indirect Elections Team (SIET)  but instead resorted to parallel leaderships. Hashi’s differences with Mahdi stem largely from his rivalry with outgoing president Mohamed Farmaajo. The latter is perceived to be pushing his political agenda through Mahdi.

Failure to resolve the stalemate will further delay elections for the break-away region. The Somaliland SIET is supposed to facilitate the selection of delegates who will, in turn, elect MPs while a council of 46 elders will elect new senators.