Addis Ababa, Ethiopia - Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf, long blamed for failing to offer strong political leadership to his war-torn country, resigned on Monday as earlier promised, owning up to his failure as a leader.
President Yusuf, who had sanctions approved against him, resigned Monday and immediately left the country to an unknown destination before an African Union team, proposed to examine the sanctions against him, was formed.
The Somali leader reportedly told parliament that he had failed to lead and unite the country as he had promised when he took power four years ago, after three years of painstaking negotiations on a clan-based power-sharing system.
The former President, who was openly blamed by his former key ally, the Ethiopian government, for engaging in "unnecessary political sideshows" with his Prime Minister Nur Hussein Hassan, also blamed the international community for failing him.
He said that the international community failed to back him, leading his soldiers and allied militia without any means of survival against powerful Islamist militia, which continued to take control of the country while he stayed in power.
Yusuf faced an upsurge of international condemnation when he attempted to fire his consensus-building Prime Minister, who was later reconfirmed as the legitimate Prime Minister by a confidence vote in parliament later.
The African Union later fired back at the Somali President after reports emerged from the Somali media that the AU Representative to Somalia had dismissed the parliamentary confidence vote for Nur as 'unconstitutional."
The Inter-governmental Authority on Development (IGAD), whose mediation of the Somali peace efforts led to the formation of the Interim Somali Federal Government (TFG) with Yusuf as president, had recently passed a vote of no confidence against him.
The former president was increasingly isolated and, on Monday, he said he was resigning because he failed to deliver on the pledges he made to parliament when he was elected in 2004 in Nairobi.
More than 14 regional leaders witnessed his swearing in.
However, he eventually fell due to his failure to build a strong political outfit, as well as his falling out with his first Prime Minister, Mohammed Ghedi, his second Prime Minister Nur and his attempts to appoint his third premier, which flopped due to international pressure.
Addis Ababa - 29/12/2008
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