Somali developments

I received this before the official announcement, but here is this message from our regular (and "highly-placed") source in Somalia: "Hope you are doing fine. Since his election, the new somali president Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed is trying to nominate a Prime minister who will be in charge of forming a new national unity government.

After his visit to Addis and the African Union meeting, Sheikh Sharif arrived back at Djibouti, then he went to Mogadisho for 3 days, holding there some meetings and open assembly. I can now tell you who will be the next prime minister (under the current transitional constitution, the 2 majors tribes namely the Hawiyeh and the Daarod have to share the post of president and prime minister). The prime minister is already choosen but it's not yet official: he is the son of the second President of Somalia (democraticaly elected) and who was sworn in to office on June 10, 1967, Mr. Abdirashid Ali Shermarke, until his assassination on October 15, 1969.

Mr. Abdirashid Ali Shermarke was born in 1919 to a Majerteen family (Daarod) in the town of Harardhere in the district of Hobyo. Raised in Mogadishu, he attended Qur'anic schools and completed his elementary education in 1936. He then embarked on a career as a trader and later as a civil servant in the Italian colonial administration. In 1943, the year of its inauguration, Shermarke joined the incipient Somali Youth League political party. He entered the British administration's civil service the following year. While still a civil servant, Shermarke completed his secondary education in 1953. He earned a scholarship to study at the prestigious Sapienza University of Rome, where he graduated in political science in 1958. After returning from his studies abroad in Italy in 1959, Shermarke was elected to the Legislative Assembly. When Somalia gained its independence on July 1, 1960, he was appointed by then-incumbent first Somali President Aden Abdullah Osman Daar as Prime Minister. Shermarke's duties as Prime Minister saw him travel abroad extensively in pursuit of a non-aligned and neutral foreign policy. He remained Prime Minister until March 1964, when the first general elections were held and which saw him re-elected as a member of Parliament.

In the 1967 presidential elections, Shermarke beat out Daar to become the second President of Somalia. On October 15, 1969, while paying a visit to the northern town of Las Anod, Shermarke was shot dead by one of his own bodyguards. His assassination was quickly followed by a military coup d'état on October 21, 1969 (the day after his funeral), in which the army seized power without encountering opposition - essentially a bloodless coup.

The coup was spearheaded by Major General Muhammad Siad Barre, who was at the time the commander of the army. Today, his son Omar Abdirashid Ali Shermarke will become soon the new Somali Prime Minister. Funny how history repeat itself sometimes....

Source: The Angry Arab News Services