SOMALIA - PRIME MINISTER REBUFFED BY SPEAKER IN

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 NAIROBI 002719

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR AF/E

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/04/2018
TAGS: PGOV PINR EAID SO ET
SUBJECT: SOMALIA - PRIME MINISTER REBUFFED BY SPEAKER IN
BAIDOA

Classified By: Somalia Unit Counselor Bob Patterson. Reasons: 1.4 (b,
d).


1. (C) Summary: A dejected Transitional Federal Government
(TFG) Prime Minister Hussein told us December 3 that his
one-day trip to Mogadishu and Baidoa in a bid to win
parliamentary confirmation of his transitional cabinet and
the November 26 Djibouti unity government communique had been
rebuffed by Parliament Speaker Madobe. Madobe had reportedly
told the Prime Minister that the Parliament needed more time
to study the communique, and that he himself was not happy
with the agreement to expand the Parliament and consider a
vote for a new leadership. The Prime Minister suspected that
TFG President Yusuf had bribed Madobe in order to win his
consent to obstruct Parliament's consideration of his cabinet
and the communique. He also suspected that Yusuf had
convinced Madobe that Alliance for the Reliberation of
Somalia Deputy Sharif Hassan would take the Speaker's job
from him should there be new elections. The Prime Minister's
efforts to ensure a quorum almost failed when only a handful
of MPs agreed to accompany him on his December 3 flight from
Nairobi, and only a few more joined him during his one-hour
stop in Mogadishu on his way to Baidoa. Meanwhile, a
no-doubt relieved President Yusuf has traveled to Djibouti to
meet with President Guelleh and, possibly, ARS Chairman
Sheikh Sherif. End summary.


2. (C) A dejected TFG Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein "Nur
Adde," fresh from a one-day round-trip flight to Mogadishu
and Baidoa, ascribed his failure to win Parliament Speaker
Madobe's agreement to back the Prime Minister's interim
cabinet and the November 26 Djibouti unity government
communique to the destructive influence of TFG President
Abdullahi Yusuf. Yusuf, Hussein said, had lobbied the
Speaker to end his earlier agreement to cooperate in winning
Parliament's approval of the cabinet. The Prime Minister
alleged that Yusuf had offered Madobe money, and that he had
convinced the Speaker that ARS Deputy Chairman Sharif Hassan
was anxious to push him out of his Speaker's chair in order
to get the Speaker to re-think his cooperation with the Prime
Minister.


3. (C) For his part, Madobe explained to the media in Baidoa
that his sudden reluctance to cooperate with the Prime
Minister was due to a lack of consultations on the cabinet,
and to his unease with the size of the enlarged Parliament
that had emerged from the November 26 Djibouti communique.
The Prime Minister's December 3 one-on-one lunch with the
Speaker had yielded "nothing," Hussein said.


4. (C) The Prime Minister said that many fewer MPs than
expected had agreed to accompany him from Nairobi to Baidoa
on his December 3 flight. The MP turnout in Mogadishu, where
he stopped briefly en route had been similarly sparse. The
PM ascribed the low turnout to Yusuf's lobbying which, he
implied, included bribery. He also acknowledged that
deteriorating security in Baidoa and some MPs' anger at not
having been paid their allowances for time spent in Nairobi
since the October IGAD Summit may also have contributed.
Still, he said, there was a quorum in Baidoa while he was
there, and the chief obstacle was the Speaker's unwillingness
to convene the Parliament.


5. (C) The Prime Minister urged that the international
community "pressure" MPs still in Nairobi and elsewhere to
return to Baidoa. He also asked that we "twist (Madobe's)
arm, as well." (In a December 2 telephone call to Baidoa,
Madobe previewed to us some of the same arguments he used on
December 3 with the Prime Minister.)


6. (C) In a December 4 conversation, Yusuf's Deputy National
Security Advisor, Hassan Abdulkadir Tahir, attempted to
persuade Embassy that Yusuf supports a prospective TFG - ARS
unity government, but believed that "some TFG members with
links to Islamists" were working with "Ethiopian officials"
to sabotage the process. Tahir offered an extended defense
of Yusuf's decision to reject the transitional cabinet
proposed by the Prime Minister. He argued that, unless the
international community joined forces with Yusuf, Somalia
would fall into the hands of radical Islamists. Yusuf, said
Tahir, was in Djibouti at the invitation of President Guelleh
who, he said, was attempting to arrange a meeting for the
President with ARS Chairman Sheikh Sharif.

Comment
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NAIROBI 00002719 002 OF 002



7. (C) The Prime Minister, who seemed to radiate certainty in
the days preceding and immediately following the November 24
- 26 Djibouti High-Level Committee negotiations, was very
subdued following his unsuccessful trip to Baidoa. He
admitted that he may have made a tactical error in pressing
the Speaker to support immediate ratification of both his
cabinet and the communique. It might have been better to
postpone consideration of the communique, he agreed, as a
number of its provisions required a two-thirds vote to amend
the Transitional Federal Charter. Still, he traced his
December 3 problems in Baidoa directly back to Yusuf who, he
said, seemed determined to sabotage any effort to advance the
Djibouti Process that does not leave him its unchallenged
leader.
RANNEBERGER