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[Tripon]

the morning of February 8, a civil servant from Buffalo, New York—a Somali by birth but an American by choice—walked into a heavily-guarded airplane hangar in the battle-scarred capital of his native country where an important vote was about to take place. When he emerged that night he was president. His surprise victory, which was celebrated with gunfire and camel slaughter in Mogadishu and high fives at the Buffalo office of the New York Department of Transportation where he was still technically employed as a equal opportunity compliance officer, was all the more remarkable because it came at the very moment a federal court in the U.S. was deciding the fate of a travel ban that targeted refugees exactly like him.

Mohamed had never been eager to leave Somalia. He was born into a well-connected clan, and his father, who spent much of his life under Italian colonial rule, was a government employee. He nicknamed his son “Farmaajo”, which is a local version of the Italian word for cheese, one of the boy’s favorite foods. After graduating from secondary school, Mohamed had access to a job with the foreign ministry, and in 1985 he was sent to Washington, D.C. to work in Somalia’s embassy. But in 1988 Mohamed criticized Somalia’s authoritarian government, and fearing he could not return home safely, he requested political asylum in the United States.

Mohamed brought his wife to Buffalo where a community of Somali refugees had begun to settle a few years earlier. They moved into public housing while he pursued a bachelor’s degree in history at New York State University in Buffalo. A year after his graduation, Mohamed’s fellow tenants elected him as resident commissioner, which automatically placed him on Buffalo’s Municipal Housing Authority. He earned a reputation as a community organizer who Buffalo immigrant and Muslim voters looked toward for leadership. In 1999, Mohamed rallied minority voters to support Joel Giambra, a Democrat-turned-Republican running for county executive, and Mohamed registered as a Republican. When Giambra won, Mohamed took a job in his office as the county’s minority-business coordinator. He parlayed that, in 2002, into a similar job with New York’s Department of Transportation. For eight years, Mohamed enforced non-discrimination and affirmative action requirements among state-employed contractors— policies that are totally alien to Somalia, where government jobs depend on clan membership and public lands are practically given away to friends and allies of those in power.

In his thesis, Mohamed identified “Islamic extremists” as a major obstacle toward stability in Somalia. Al-Shabaab and other terrorist organizations, he argued, were able to flourish because of the United States’ ill-advised policy in the region. “The Somali people have been victim of colonialism, dictatorship, and warlord thugs,” Mohamed wrote. “Now, they are at the crossroad of two extremist ideologies: George W. Bush's Christian ideology on one hand, and Islamic radicalism on the other, which want to wage a holy war on each other not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also in Somalia as well. Sadly, the people who ultimately suffer most form the majority: they do not subscribe to these radical ideologies.”

To the shock of international news outlets, few of whom considered Mohamed a major contender, the bureaucrat from Buffalo won more than 50 percent of votes in the second round. Former President Ahmed was eliminated, and while the rules required that the eventual victor win two-thirds of votes, President Mohamud, who trailed Mohamed significantly in the second round, conceded defeat. While thousands rushed into the streets of Mogadishu and soldiers celebrated by firing their automatic weapons into the air, Mohamed declared in a televised victory speech that, “This is the beginning of unity for the Somali nation, the beginning of the fight against al-Shabaab and corruption.”

News reports largely confirmed that significant amounts of money had changed hands, despite the attempts to limit the vote-buying. According to Abdi Ismail Samatar, a University of Minnesota professor who was part of a commission appointed by parliament to observe the election process and stop the exchange of cash on the voting floor, there is little reason to believe any of the major candidates–Mohamed included–had abstained. “I am quite confident that all of the four or five major candidates were deeply implicated in the buying of votes,” Samatar told POLITICO. “That includes the incoming President Mohamed.”

http://www.politico.com/magazine/st...bureaucrat-became-president-of-somalia-214798

 

[Kickz]

That country has been a mess my entire lifetime

 

[Kinitari]

Buying votes seems so insane to me, it ruins all ability to analyze an election properly. Did the people agree with his plan, did they desire an 'outsider'? Or did he just spend the most on buying votes?

 

[Tripon]

Buying votes seems so insane to me, it ruins all ability to analyze an election properly. Did the people agree with his plan, did they desire an 'outsider'? Or did he just spend the most on buying votes?

Probably a combination of all 3. The article says that votes in parliament was $50000 per vote. The winner is the best that a bad system can currently produce.

Personal opinion, but if this means that a country like Somalia can get on a more stable, democratic road, then how he got there will be a distasteful, but still footnote in history.

 

[TheRealTalker]

and Trump already starting up that awkward relationship

The US Ambassador to Somalia just gave the country’s new president a "Make Somalia Great Again" hat

https://www.buzzfeed.com/talalansar...president?bftw&utm_term=.daXkYd5Yy#.qmKdLozLr

 

[Mr.Sumal]

Buying votes seems so insane to me, it ruins all ability to analyze an election properly. Did the people agree with his plan, did they desire an 'outsider'? Or did he just spend the most on buying votes?

It's funny how it all transpired. It was predicted he would bow out in the second round because his war chest paled in comparison to his competition. The president before him used state funds to help his re-election campaign, and the other two heavy weights had the GCC backing them. The only reason he won is that the opposition rallied around him to oust the previous one.

The feel good part of that election is that 30 mps took money from the previous president and gave their vote to the current president.