MOGADISHU, April 3 (Xinhua) -- Somalia's Lower House Parliamentary speaker Mohamed Osman Jawari maintained Tuesday he will not resign as being pushed by the Executive as a motion to impeach him is slated for debate on Wednesday.
Addressing a news conference in Mogadishu, the embattled Jawari said the parliamentary sitting for Wednesday meant to discuss his conduct was illegal and unconstitutional.
The speaker who has been accused by lawmakers of violating the constitution also accused President Mohamed Farmajo of escalating the political crisis in the Horn of Africa nation by asking him to resign and instead of resolving the crisis without taking sides.
"They are asking me to resign, but I am not going to resign, I will not resign since I do not work for them," Jawari told journalists, adding that president Farmajo has been pushing him to resign instead of seeking avenues to resolve the political crisis that has brought Parliament to a standstill.
Jawari said efforts to solve ongoing political crisis have failed after rejecting calls by the Executive to resign, maintaining he was elected through the ballot and will exist through the same.
The 72-year-old speaker said he had agreed with the president during his meeting on Friday evening to allow for some time to reach a political solution to the current crisis but added that the impeachment motion planned for Wednesday means that the Executive has approved it.
He appealed to the lawmakers who are planning to convene the session on Wednesday to discuss the no-confidence motion against him to rescind their decision, saying their actions and decisions "should reflect the interests of those people."
The president held a crisis meeting with Jawari and his two deputies including chairman of the Senate Abdi Hashi Abdullaahi on Friday evening to forestall a political crisis which has been roundly condemned by international community.
The international community says it's "extremely concerned" by recent political and security developments in Mogadishu that risk derailing hard-earned political, economic, and security achievements and tarnishing the reputation of Somalia.
A motion to remove Jawari from office failed on March 15 to garner enough numbers to meet the 92 quorum threshold after 16 lawmakers withdrew their support in the last minute.
The impeachment motion which has been postponed thrice with anti-speaker lawmakers making efforts to attain more signatories for the vote of no confidence against the speaker.
Jawari, who was re-elected in 2017 for the second term in office, has blamed the prime minister and now the president for being behind a motion of no confidence against him and has vowed to face the motion on the floor of the house if the legal requirements are met.
