The new president sets a new agenda, with new foreign friends and ideas to tackle the Al Shabaab insurgents – all amid a devastating drought, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud s presidency is off to an energetic start with a major reorientation of Somalia s regional alliances, a return to federalist and devolutionary policies, and a purge of the National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA), which was stuffed with supporters of his predecessor, Mohamed Abdullah Mohamed Farmajo , and infiltrated by Al Shabaab.
Western officials banged heads together in Mogadishu to forestall more clashes and force agreement. Polling should now end by 25 February, The country has stepped back from the brink once more as the tension eased between President Mohamed Abdullah Mohamed Farmajo and the man he suspended as prime minister, Mohamed Hussein Roble, on 26 December. After standing to one side, western powers, in the shape of United States Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Molly Phee, and Britain s Minister for Africa, Vicky Ford, sent an unequivocal message to get on with the elections.