Members of parliament overwhelmingly elected political newcomer Hassan Sheikh Mohamud as president of Somalia on Monday, a result hailed by supporters as a vote for change in the war-ravaged country.
Bursts of celebratory gunfire crackled through the streets of the capital, Mogadishu, after the first vote of its kind in decades in Somalia drew to a close.
Mohamud won in a secret ballot with 190 votes, against 79 lawmakers voting for Ahmed.
“I congratulate all Somalis. The people are taking a new direction. You are now ending the difficult path and taking a new one,” Mohamud said to a cheering crowd of well-wishers.
Although Mohamud is a relatively new face in Somali politics, the one-time academic will be confronted by old problems: acrimonious clan politics, rampant corruption, maritime piracy and a stubborn Islamist insurgency.
Mohamud, seen as a moderate, unexpectedly defeated incumbent President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed after two of the four candidates who made it to the second round of voting dropped out.
One of them, outgoing Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, who backed Mohamud, said the result heralded a new era for Somalian politics.
“Somalia voted for change,” Ali said, adding it was too early to say whether he would take part in the next administration.
Somalia has lacked an effective central government since the outbreak of civil war in 1991.
The capital, however, which until last year witnessed street battles between al-Shabaab militants and African soldiers, is now a vibrant city where reconstructed homes are replacing bullet-riddled structures.
Monday’s vote was seen as a culmination of a regionally brokered, UN-backed roadmap to end that conflict, during which tens of thousands of people were killed and many more fled.
Despite being on the back foot, the militants still control swathes of southern and central Somalia, while pirates, regional administrations and local militia groups also vie for control of chunks of the mostly lawless Horn of Africa country.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
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