Ethiopian-backed warlord Abdullahi Yusuf was elected Somali president by lawmakers yesterday, according to an unofficial tally, in the 14th attempt in a decade to restore government to the lawless African country. Yusuf won 185 votes cast by parliamentarians meeting as an electoral college in neighboring Kenya, against 76 for opponent Abdullahi Addou, in a third and final round of voting, according to a Reuters tally of results that were read out one by one by officials. If the result is confirmed Yusuf will head a transitional federal government (TFG) that will attempt to shepherd the broken country of up to 10 million to elections under a new constitution in five years' time. Somali lawmakers voted for the new president for their anarchic Horn of Africa state in an election held in Nairobi. Three of six Somali presidential candidates who qualified for the second round in yesterday's election pulled out of the race moments before the start of the ballot. "I am pulling out of the race and I will support anyone who is elected. That is democracy," Salat, who won just 15 votes in the first round, told the packed stadium.
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Salat's administration never managed to exert authority beyond a few pockets of the Somali capital, Mogadishu. "All my life I have worked for a united Somalia and it is for that reason that I am withdrawing," Barre, half brother to Somalia's last president, the late Mohammed Siad Barre, toppled in 1991, said on announcing his withdrawal. "For the sake of the Somali nation I give up my desire to be president," was Hussein Ado's valediction. |