January 30, 2009
Moderate Islamist leader Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed was elected Somalia's new president Saturday during a vote by parliament in neighbouring Djibouti.
Sheikh Sharif was running as the leader of the Islamist-dominated Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia and comfortably defeated his election rivals.
He won a majority of the votes in a second-round face-off with Maslah Mohamed Siad Barre, according to an AFP correspondent who witnessed the counting process.
The vote was organised as a result of the December resignation of Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed following a bitter power struggle with Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein, who pulled out of the presidential election after the first round.
Source: AFP
