MOGADISHU, Feb 26, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - Somalia on Friday extended its deadline
to finish voting for the lower house of parliament, the latest in a series of
election delays that risk starving the country of budget funds.

   The fragile Horn of Africa nation has struggled to hold elections, with
polls delayed by more than a year, bedevilled by political squabbling and a
simmering Islamist insurgency.

   The lower house elections were due to be completed on Friday and pave the
way for lawmakers to pick a president.

   But Deputy Information Minister Abdirahman Yusuf said the deadline had now
been revised to March 15.

   "The National Consultative Council... expressed their disappointment with
the fact that they could not meet the deadline," the minister said in a
televised address.

   US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday said the delay was driving
"political instability" in the country and announced an extension of visa
restrictions on officials and others "responsible for, or complicit in"
undermining Somalia's electoral process.

   The United States, which first imposed the restrictions on February 8,
last month also threatened to levy sanctions if the country missed Friday's
deadline.

   Somalia's announcement comes just days after the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) warned it might have to stop its programme in the country if the
polls were postponed again.

   The IMF programme is due for a review in mid-May, but election delays mean
a new administration may not be ready to endorse planned reforms in time,
forcing it to an automatic halt, Laura Jaramillo Mayor, the fund's Somalia
mission chief, told AFP.

   Elections were originally scheduled for a year ago but were delayed when
President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, better known by his nickname Farmajo,
tried to extend his term.

   Farmajo's four-year mandate expired in February last year but was
controversially extended by parliament in April, triggering deadly gun
battles on the streets of Mogadishu.

   Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble then brokered a new election
timetable, but in the months that followed, a bitter rivalry between him and
Farmajo derailed the process again.

   The international community has voiced fears that election delays, as well
as the feud between Farmajo and Roble, could set off new troubles for a
country that has lacked stable governance for three decades.

   Somalia's elections follow a complex indirect model.

   Nearly 30,000 clan delegates are assigned to choose 275 MPs for the lower
house while state legislatures elect senators for the upper house, a process
that has now been completed.

   Once the lower house election is concluded, both assemblies vote for the
next president.

   So far, about 175 members of the lower house have been elected.