Al-Jazeera, January 31, 2009
New Somali president sworn in
Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed has been sworn in as the new president of Somalia just months after his Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia (ARS) signed a peace deal with the transitional government.
The ceremony in neighbouring Djibouti on Saturday came after Ahmed, who also led the Islamic Courts Union, won a run-off parliamentary vote.
The new president’s Islamic Courts movement ruled Mogadishu and most of southern Somalia for six months before being ousted by the Ethiopian military at the end of 2006.
Ahmed easily defeated Maslah Mohamed Siad, son of ex-president Mohamed Siad Barre, in Saturday morning’s second round of voting, winning 293 votes to Siad’s 126.
“My government will bring an adequate plan to overcome the difficulties the nation is facing,” he said in a brief inauguration speech. Continue reading Another President Elected … in Somalia