MOGADISHU: Somalia’s President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed has signed a controversial law extending his mandate for another two years, despite threats of sanctions from the international community.

In a separate incident, and a sign of the wider instability in Somalia, 15 people were killed and four were wounded when the minibus they were travelling in hit a landmine outside Mogadishu, according to government spokesman Mohamed Ibrahim Moalimuu, who blamed the attack on Al-Shabaab.

The international community has warned that Somalia’s current political crisis could deal a blow to efforts to stabilise the fragile state after decades of civil war and an Islamist insurgency.

The president, in power since 2017, has “signed into law the special resolution guiding the elections of the country after it was unanimously passed by parliament”, reported state broadcaster Radio Mogadishu.

Somalia’s lower house of parliament on Monday voted to extend the president’s mandate — which expired in February — after months of deadlock over the holding of elections in the fragile nation.

However the speaker of the Senate slammed the move as unconstitutional, and the resolution was not put before the upper house, which would normally be required, before being signed into law.