Cabinet appointments deliberately antagonized both autonomous regional governments.
Evidence
In selecting his remarkably large cabinet (eventually including 83 ministers – over a third of the original number of members of the assembly), ‘Ali chose as defence minister a clansman and personal rival of the Puntland leader, Colonel ‘Abdillahi Yusuf. This appointment was bound to fuel conflict in that autonomous region. Both Somaliland and Puntland thus had grounds for irritation, further aggravated by the aggressive terms in which the transitional President and Prime Minister attacked the two territories and, in company with the U.N., belittled their achievements. — I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Somali_ Nation…, 680
Categorization
- XREF: The 83-minister cabinet echoes Siyad’s inflation of government personnel described in earlier chapters on his rule.