Dec 27, 2021: Somalia’s president, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, has suspended the prime minister and removed the commander of the Marine Corps pending the completion of a corruption probe, adding to the growing instability in the country.

The president’s office said in a statement on Monday that “the president has decided to suspend Prime Minister Muhammad Hussein Roble and suspend his powers because he was involved in corruption,” the president’s office said in a statement on Monday. He was accused of interfering in the investigation of the land grab case.

The move by President Mohamed comes a day after trading accusations with Roble of holding up ongoing parliamentary elections.

The long-delayed election began on November 1 and was due to end on December 24, but a newly elected lawmaker said that by Saturday, only 24 of the 275 representatives had been elected. In a statement Sunday, the presidential office said Prime Minister Robel was “becoming a serious threat to the electoral process and exceeding his mandate.”

Roble’s office later issued a statement saying the president had “spent a lot of time, energy and money” in frustrating the national election and was “derailing the election process”.

In a statement, Roble said he would hold meetings to find ways to speed up the election and “agree on a competent leadership to lead timely and transparent elections” without elaborating further on the process. Under Somalia’s complex indirect election process, regional councils aim to elect the Senate. The tribal elders then aim to elect members of the lower house, who then elect a new president.

The president’s move reopened a confrontation that was resolved when the president appointed Rubel in charge of security and held his first direct election in more than 30 years. In April, factions of Mohammed and Roble’s coalition security forces seized control of the capital, as the prime minister and the opposition opposed a two-year extension of the president’s four-year term.

Clashes between the two groups forced between 60,000 and 100,000 people to flee their homes. Somalia, which has had only a limited central government since 1991, is trying to rebuild itself with the help of the United Nations and fight the al-Qaeda-linked group al-Shabab.

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