BAIDOA, Somalia, Dec 24, 2006 (AFP) - The political institutions of Somalia's transitional government, set up after laborious peace negotiations in 2004, have been unable to re-establish order in a country racked by civil war since 1991.
The symbol of the government's powerlessness in an essentially lawless country is its location, not Somalia's traditional capital Mogadishu, but rather 250 kilometers (155 miles) away in Baidoa.
The Somalian government is recognized by the international community and has the support of its northwestern neighbor, Ethiopia, which Sunday took the offensive against Somali Islamists fighting the transitional administration.
The Somali president, prime minister and parliament are unelected.
The parliament consists of 275 lawmakers chosen by Somalia's warlords and approved by the traditional chiefs proportionally according to the size of the clan -- the basic unit of Somalian society.
The parliament was inaugurated on August 22, 2004, in Nairobi. It held its first session in Somalia in Baidoa 18 months later on February 26, 2006.
In October 2004, parliament chose president Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, a former faction chief. He picked a prime minister, Ali Mohamed Gedi, who has no political base.
The institutions, created by the national transition charter, were set up for five years by which time elections should theoretically be organized.
It took two years of talks in Nairobi to create Somalia's transitional government. Somalia has lacked an effective administration since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
After two years in office, Somalia is more divided than ever. The government only controls the Baidoa region, where heavy fighting between government forces and Somalia's increasingly powerful Islamists.
The Islamists now control most of central and southern Somalia and have repeatedly threatened Ethiopia, which acknowledged attacking Sunday in self-defence.
Somaliland, a northwest region covering about a quarter of Somali territory, proclaimed independence in 1991.
Puntland, a self-proclaimed autonomous region to the northeast, has its own administration.
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