In a fragile Somalia, the parliament chooses US citizen as new president

Somalia took a halting step toward stability Wednesday by electing a new president, a 55-year-old former prime minister who lived in the United States for many years and is a US citizen.

Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo was voted into office by the parliament, which gathered at the Mogadishu airport because it was deemed the most secure place in a capital plagued by suicide bombings and armed attacks by the Islamic militant group al-Shabab.

The voting was streamed live online, and celebratory gunfire rang out in Mogadishu as Farmaajo moved ahead. After the result was announced, crowds surged into the streets chanting his name, local journalists reported.

“This victory represents the interest of the Somali people,” Farmaajo said after taking the oath of office. “This victory belongs to the Somali people, and this is the beginning of the era of the unity, the democracy of Somalia and the beginning of the fight against corruption.”

Farmaajo was born in Mogadishu and once worked in the Foreign Ministry, which deployed him to the Somali Embassy in Washington in 1985.

He left the embassy in 1989 to study at the State University of New York in Buffalo. After the collapse of the Mohamed Siad Barre government in 1991, when Somalia erupted in clan warfare, Farmaajo sought asylum in the US.