Members of Somalia's 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 incumbent President Sheikh Sharif 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 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 threw his weight behind Mohamud, said the result heralded a new era for Somali politics.
"Somalia voted for change," Ali told Reuters, adding it was too early to say whether he would take part in the next administration.
The capital, however, which until last year witnessed street battles between Al-Qaeda-linked Al Shabaab militants and African soldiers, is now a vibrant city where reconstructed houses are slowly 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.
The outgoing president conceded defeat after onlookers in the hall where the vote was held spontaneously stood up and sang the national anthem.
Attention will now focus on whether all of Somalia's rival clans respect the result, or whether factions will seek to destabilize the next government.
A UN official who was present at the vote on Monday described Mohamud as "progressive and a safe pair of hands."
Touching a Koran with his right hand, Mohamud was sworn in as president within minutes of his poll victory at a crowded hall in Mogadishu's police academy. Mohamud graduated from the Somali National University in 1981 before obtaining a master's degree in education from India's Bhopal University in 1988.
In 1999, the fluent English speaker co-founded the Somali Institute of Management and Administration Development in Mogadishu, which later became Simad University, and served as its dean until 2010. In 2011, he founded the Peace and Development Party.
Reuters
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