Somalia’s Constituent Assembly endorsed a draft constitution on Wednesday that seeks to end more than 20 years of conflict, as two suicide bombers died after failing to gain entry to a venue where the vote on the document took place.
The charter was backed by 621 members of the 645 Constituent Assembly members who gathered in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, said Nimo Ahmed, who managed the voting process.
“Today represents a significant milestone in the path toward a better future,” Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali told delegates. “We have left behind the transition period and moved toward a permanent and stable government.”
Somalia has had no effective central government since the downfall of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.
For the past eight years, a UN-backed transitional administration has tried to assert its authority over the Horn of Africa country with little success amid an insurgency by Al Qaeda-linked Islamist militants.
Two suicide bombers died when they tried to attack the police academy in Mogadishu, where voting on the constitution took place.