Somali lawmakers voted Wednesday to oust parliamentary speaker Sherif Hassan Sheikh Adan who has openly backed Islamists, thus sparking divisions within the Ethiopian-backed transitional government.

Somali lawmaker Awad Ashara said 183 legislators voted in southern town of Baidoa for the sacking of Adan, who is currently on a visit in Brussels, while nine voted against.

"We are going to elect a new speaker within 15 days. Adan has been dismissed by the majority of MPs," Ashara told Xinhua by telephone from Baidoa.

The beleaguered Adan was the first senior figure from the transitional government who went to Mogadishu when it was held by the Islamists, to try to broker peace between the two warring sides.

However, President Abdullahi Yusuf, who is a political rival of the parliamentary speaker, did not support the peace initiative.

The moves followed the collapse of the Arab League-mediated peace talks in Khartoum early last month.

Late last year, Adan also rebelled against the government and threw his support behind the Islamic movement and urged the Ethiopian troops to leave the war-ravaged nation.

Regional diplomats said the removal of Adan, who is a member of the influential clan, Rahawein, would destabilize efforts underway to restore stability and might divide the government and parliament, whose formation is based on an intricate power-sharing alliance among fractious clans.

Source: Xinhua