President Hassan Sheekh Mohamud

[xiinfaniin]

Somalia’s New President: A Victory

for Islamic Groups

By Hassan M. Abukar

Sept. 11, 2012

 

On Monday, Somalia selected a new president, Hassan Sh. Mohamoud, an Islamist. Mohamoud has been an Islamic activist for a long time. He is counted as one of the sympathizers of the New Blood, a group of Islamists who broke away from al-Islah, Somalia’s Muslim Brotherhood, during the reign of the Islamic Courts Union. I use the word “counted,” because there is no record of Mohamoud as a member of any Islamic group. What is not in doubt is the fact that he is an Islamist of the Muslim Brotherhood persuasion. Rival candidate Abdurrahman Baadiyow, on the other hand, has been a member of al-Islah more than two decades.

 

One phenomenon that was apparent during Monday’s selection process was the prevalence of Islamists among the candidates best able to generate votes in the first round of the election. For instance, four of the six highest vote getters were Islamists: Hassan Sh. Mohamoud, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, Abdurrahman Baadiyow, and Abdulkhadir Ossoble. Each of these four candidates is believed to represent four different trends: Tajamuc or Ala-Sheikh (Shaikh Sharif), al-Islah (Baadiyow), Ossoble (al-Ictisaam) and Mohamoud (the New Blood). Professor Afyare Elmi of Qatar University was prescient when he predicted in 2010 that Islamists would rule Somalia one day. The Arab Spring has brought the Islamic movements to the forefront of political power.

 

One can confidently say that the four Islamists did a remarkable job garnering votes. Baadiyow was articulate and bold in his presidential campaign speech before the Somali parliament which he declared that the current Transitional Federal Government leaders were failures. He did not get the votes that he had hoped; the recent turmoil in al-Islah did not make things easier for him. The good news is that the Islamists are more likely to learn from this new political experience. Still, the Islamists in Somalia have not reached the level at which they can mobilize the masses for political purposes and win elections. They are in a early stage where personality dominates the political process rather than the institutions. The new president did not win because he is the founder/leader of a political party called Peace and Development Party (PDP). He won, in part, by forging alliances with various clans and capitalizing on the lawmakers’ dissatisfaction with the status quo.

 

Somalia, like Tunisia and Egypt, will test Islamist leaders who are at the helm. Muslims in these countries have granted Islamists a chance because they see them as clean and not corrupt. Now, the ball is in the courts of the Islamists. Will they rule by building coalitions and leading by example? Will they be tolerant, unifiers, and fight for justice and equality before the law?

 

Many Somalis are optimistic that Somalia is headed in the right direction. It was impossible, two years ago, to move around Mogadishu safely. Today, the country is enjoying relative peace, and the days of chaos, political cannibalism, and warlords are behind us. US Republican Senator Mitch McConnell said in 2010 that he wanted President Obama to fail. Many of us, on the contrary, are praying for Somalia’s new president to succeed.

 

 

Hassan M. Abukar

WardheerNews

E-Mail:Abukar60@yahoo.c

[xiinfaniin]

Beckoning the Future: Somalia's New President Hassan Sh. Mahmoud

WardheerNews

Sept. 12, 2012

 

http://www.wardheernews.com/Editorial/Edit_2012/WDN_Edit_Sept_12_12.html

[Carafaat]

xiinfaniin;868494 wrote:

Somalia’s New President: A Victory

for Islamic Groups

By Hassan

M.

Abukar

Sept. 11, 2012

Muhubo?

[xiinfaniin]

The election of Hassan Sheikh Mohamud could end an era of hopelessness in Somalia

David Blair

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

 

Only a few years ago, Somalia’s official government could not even enter the country and its ministers were forced to live in exile in Kenya. Then it moved into the country, but only as far as the ruined provincial town of Baidoa. The national capital, Mogadishu, was out of bounds, firmly in the hands of extreme Islamists allied to al-Qaeda.

 

Today, President Mohamud will take over a government that is based in Mogadishu with a good measure of control over the city and the surrounding area. For the first time since 1991, an internationally recognised administration actually holds sway over the national capital. By Somalia’s standards, that counts as a stellar achievement.

 

The credit goes largely to 9,000 Ugandan and Burundian soldiers deployed in Mogadishu by the African Union. They took on the Islamists from al-Shabaab and rolled them back, street by street, until they were finally expelled from the city at the beginning of this year. Today, al-Shabaab still controls most of southern Somalia, but they only have one remaining urban stronghold: the southern port town of Kismayo. If they were ever to lose that, al-Shabaab would also be deprived of a vital source of revenue. And the signs are that the AU force, with its proven ability to take on al-Shabaab and beat them, will move against Kismayo at some stage.

 

But a huge responsibility falls on the shoulders of the new president. Somalia’s official government has been riddled with corruption and infighting. He must ensure that a functioning administration will be able to govern the areas that are recaptured from al-Shabaab. It would be a tragedy if the African Union force pays the blood price for victories over the Islamists, only for these hard won gains to be squandered by the failings of Somalia’s government. President Mohamud must keep Somalia on its slow path towards recovery.

 

Source: The Telegraph

[General Duke]

It has been good thus far.