New Somali President, Sharif Shaikh Ahmed Starts New Era, Facing Daunting Task

New Somali president starts new era, facing daunting task

2009-02-01 03:25:05  

·Ahmed won the presidential election Saturday after a long night of voting in Djibouti. ·The election is seen as the beginning of a new chapter in Somali politics. ·Analysts warn "huge daunting challenges" are laying ahead for the new administration.

    by Abdurrahman Warsameh

    MOGADISHU, Jan. 31 (Xinhua) --

The election of Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, leader of the Islamists-dominated opposition coalition Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia (ARS), is seen as the beginning of a new chapter in Somali politics but analysts warn "huge daunting challenges" are laying ahead for the new administration.

    Ahmed won the presidential election on Saturday after a long night of voting in neighboring Djibouti where the enlarged Somali transitional parliament, which includes nearly 200 Members of Parliament from the ARS, has been holding sessions.

    It is widely seen here that the election of Ahmed as the new president is only the beginning of a long process of stabilizing the war-torn Horn of African country which has been hit by nearly two decades of civil strife.

    "The new leader for Somalia, despite his popular support at the grassroots level within Somalia, particularly in the south-central Somalia, faces formidable opposition from hardline groups within the Islamist camps including the Al-Shabaab movement," Yusuf Harun, a senior academic in Mogadishu told Xinhua.

    The Al-Shabaab group has not officially reacted to the election of the new Somali President but the group has been opposed to the peace talks which led to a power-sharing deal between Ahmed's moderate faction of the ARS and the Somali transitional government.

    The other splinter group of the ARS led by the firebrand Islamist cleric Sheik Hassan Dahir Aweys has voiced their opposition to the sharing of power with what they term as "the apostate government of Somalia", saying it makes no difference to them between Ahmed and former Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed who resigned last month.

    The other task facing the new administration now is the ability of the new ruler to unite the parties within the Somali parliament which is apparently divided along the line of the former MPs from the transitional government and the newly accommodated members from the opposition.

    "The division is very clear for everyone to see because nearly 123 MP, possibly from the old guard, so to speak ,have apparently voted against the new president who needs to have the cooperation of all MPs, whether the new or old guard," Harun said.

    The new Somali leadership will have to convince the international community and the Somalia' neighbors that the country is not turning heaven for terrorist organizations and that the country is not at war with its neighbors, a stance the new president has reaffirmed.

    There has been lot of talks in the media, particularly foreign media, that Somalia is being used as a base by organizations linked to terrorism and that will be one of the challenges facing the new administration, said Harun.

    As Somalia's political dynamics is centered around division of power along clan lines, it will require some sort of political dexterity on the part of the new president to strike a balance between having a Government of National Unity while preserving the political affiliation.

Shaikh Sharif Shaikh Ahmed newly elected President of Somalia

2009-01-31 15:04:55

    MOGADISHU, Jan. 31 (Xinhua) --

Shaikh Sharif Shaikh Ahmed, a moderate Islamist leader, was elected president of Somalia by the country's enlarged parliament of on Saturday morning after night long voting in Djibouti City where the legislative has been meeting.

    Born in 1964 in Middle Shabelle province, Ahmed has been the leader of the Union of the Islamic Courts (UIC), an Islamist movement made up of clan-based Islamic Sharia courts, which ruled much of southern and central Somalia in the second half of 2006 after defeating warlords accused of oppressing local residents.

    Ahmed, who studied at universities in Sudan and Libya, is considered a moderate Islamist and had worked prior to his involvement in the the movement as a teacher at secondary schools in Mogadishu.

    After only six months in power, the movement he led was ousted by allied Ethiopian and Somali government forces which accused the UIC of threatening the national security of Ethiopia and of challenging the Somali transitional government which had been confined to the southern town of Baidoa by then.

    Ahmed fled Somalia to the Kenyan border where he was taken to the capital Nairobi and met U.S. diplomats but later made his base in the Eritrean capital Asmara where he and some of his colleagues founded an opposition coalition, the Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia (ARS).

    He split with one of the leaders of ARS, the hardliner cleric Shaikh Hassan Dahir Aweys after starting peace talks with the Somali government last year.

    The UN-sponsored talks between the ARS led by Ahmed and Prime Minister Nour Hassan Hussain's transitional government led to a peace and power-sharing deal that resulting in the enlargement of the Somali transitional parliament which accommodated 200 members from Ahmed's faction of the ARS.

    After two rounds of voting, Ahmed was elected as the Somali president with wide majority of the votes early on Saturday.

    Ahmed has pledged to forge good relations with neighboring countries in the region including Ethiopia whose troops toppled his administration in the south-central Somalia in 2006. He has also pledged a clean government and to work to bring those outside the current peace process on board.

    Ahmed, a father of two, is widely accredited for spearheading the stabilization of the southern part of the war-torn Horn of Africa nation during his movement's rule late in 2006.

    He will be sworn in at a ceremony later on Saturday, in which a number of regional head of states and government are expected to attend.

    After the Swearing-in ceremony, Ahmed will fly to Addi Ababa, Ethiopia for the 12th African Union summit.

Editor: Han Jingjing