Somalia elected Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud as president for the second time on Sunday, as the Horn of Africa country faces an Islamist insurgency and looming famine.
After a marathon vote to decide between 36 candidates, broadcast on national television, parliamentary officials counted more than 165 votes in favor of ex-president Mohamoud (in power from 2012 to 2017), who therefore exceeded the number of votes required to defeat the incumbent, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, says Farmajo.
The presidential election in Somalia follows a complex indirect system, in which state assemblies and delegates from a myriad of clans and sub-clans choose the legislators who, in turn, nominate the president.
In addition to the president-elect and the incumbent, the list of candidates also included other prominent personalities, including former Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire (2017-2020), President of the Puntland region, Said Abdullahi Dani, and a wife, former Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister (2012-2014) Fawzia Yusuf Adan.
This election puts an end to more than a year of political crisis around this election, postponed several times, after the mandate of Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed had expired in February 2021 without his having managed to organize a new election. .
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