Dhusamareb (AX) — Galmudug Parliament Speaker Mohamed Nur Gacal says troops blocked the parliament building in Dhusamareb on Tuesday on the orders of President Ahmed Abdi Kariye Qoorqoor, preventing lawmakers from opening a scheduled session.
In an interview with BBC Somali, Gacal said the forces were still stationed at the building and had been instructed by Qoorqoor to halt parliamentary proceedings.
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“The lawmakers initially allowed the troops to enter, but later learned that the order to close the building had come from the Galmudug president,” he added.
Gacal said lawmakers who reached out to Qoorqoor were told that an election process was in progress and that constitutional institutions did not need to resume work while the electoral process remained unresolved.
He dismissed that argument, maintaining that the constitution requires constitutional bodies to continue carrying out their responsibilities until authority is formally handed over to newly established institutions.
He added that court rulings and election-related decisions endorsed by the federal government and the electoral commission remain pending implementation.
“So far, the troops are on us, and they have orders, as they told us, from the Galmudug president,” Gacal said.
Although he said the presence of security forces did not represent a direct personal danger to him or other lawmakers, Gacal said it had effectively brought legislative movement and parliamentary business to a halt.
“I had been unable to communicate directly with Qoorqoor because of the forces surrounding the headquarters,” he added.
Gacal placed the standoff within the broader electoral dispute and the continuing tensions between Somalia’s federal government and the Galmudug administration.
He said Galmudug’s institutions had remained inactive for almost five months amid the election disagreement, a crisis that he said ultimately prompted concessions from the Galmudug president and produced an agreement between the federal government and Galmudug authorities.
Gacal said he believed Tuesday’s action was tied to those disputes and to decisions taken during the election process.
He argued that parliament must resume its duties, pointing to pressing matters such as safeguarding Galmudug’s unity and solidarity, settling political disagreements and addressing the drought affecting local communities.
He also said parliament needed to consider several laws, while no official date has been set for the next election.
Galmudug President Qoorqoor has not issued a public response to the allegations.
The confrontation follows a ruling by Somalia’s Supreme Court last week that voided the results of elections for Galmudug’s House of Representatives and local councils and ordered new polls.
Chief Justice Bashe Yusuf Ahmed said the elections had been organized and conducted in a manner that departed from constitutional requirements for free, fair and impartial voting.
The court said the problems it identified were substantial rather than minor, significantly weakening the transparency, freedom and fairness of the elections and influencing their outcome.
