Somali Premier Resigns under Kampala Accord

Somali Prime Minister Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed on Sunday announced he was resigning following an agreement ending the troubled country's transitional administration.

"Considering the interest of the society and in compliance with the Kampala accord, I decided to quit to compromise for the national interest", Abdullahi Mohamed told reporters in Mogadishu, thanking those who supported him.

Somali President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed and parliament leader Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden signed a deal in the Ugandan capital on June 9 extending their terms for a year, pushing back polls due in August.

The accord stipulates that the prime minister's mandate ends within 30 days and for his successor to be named by the president and approved by parliament in 14 days.

Elections for president and speaker of parliament will have to take place prior to August 20, 2012.

Somalia's transitional government, which was set up in 2004 in Kenya and owes its survival to the international community, has been weakened by infighting between its leaders which has worsened as the end of the mandates approached.

Abdullahi Mohamed who was not one of the signatories rejected the deal on Tuesday.

"I will respect the wish of the Somali people who want me to stay in office, rather than implementing the Kampala accord," he had told a press conference in Mogadishu.

The president had previously called for the extension, saying Somalia was too unstable for elections as it battles al-Qaida-inspired Islamist militants.

The president and the parliament speaker had two reasons for wanting to oust the prime minister.

Abdullahi Mohamed is an ethnic Ogadeni and they are under pressure from the Puntland region to replace him with an ethnic Darod. Moreover he has gained a degree of popularity and this has riled them.

On June 12, members of the government demanded unanimously that the agreement had to be ratified by parliament, a provision that did not figure in the agreement.

The mandate of the fragile transitional institutions theoretically ends August 20, having already been prolonged for two years.