Somali Prime Minister Mohamed Ghedi on Monday named a leaner cabinet of 31 ministers, weeks after President Abdullahi Yusuf disbanded a bloated cabinet of 92 ministers, accusing it of failing to deliver on the peace pledges.

Somali politicians familiar with the new cabinet said most of the former key members and allies who remained loyal to Premier Ghedi retained their posts.

Ghedi said that he had done extensive consultations with the president and the powerful Speaker Sherif Hassan Aden while naming the new team, whose main assignment is to restore unity in the unstable country.

The old cabinet was disbanded after a series of resignations and an attempted bid to nullify Ghedi's legitimacy to rule through a no-confidence vote, which was defeated after the opposition failed to raise the required 133 votes.

But the new cabinet did not include representatives from the Union of Islamic Courts, who were widely expected to join the government ahead of formal peace mediation efforts in Khartoum, in which the Islamic Courts leadership were expected to prevail.

(Xinhua News Agency August 22, 2006)