MOGADISHU [SMN] – The long-ruling Jubaland regional state leader Ahmed Madobe held a meeting with a top US diplomat at the American embassy in Mogadishu on Tuesday.
Jubaland presidency said Madobe and the US Deputy Ambassador to Somalia, Tim Trenkle discussed the war on Al-Shabaab and the Federal and State leaders’ NCC meeting outcome.
During four-day talks at Villa Somalia, the NCC agreed to implement a “one-person, one-vote” system in the country. Somalia has not held a direct vote in over 50 years.
Somalia will start electing its president and other officials by direct vote next year, a move that will see the abolition of the premiership position and enact a presidential system.
If universal suffrage is introduced, it will break with the past indirect election methods that Somalia has practiced since 2000 when the first transitional government was formed in Djibouti after the ouster of the military regime in 1991.
Tim Trenkle assured Madobe that the US will support Jubaland state in the fight against Al-Shabaab as part of broader counterterrorism operations in the Horn of Africa nation.
The United States frequently carries out airstrikes on Al-Shabab bases in Jubaland, with the last operation last week in the Jilib district, where a senior leader was wounded, according to AFRICOM.
