Somali lawmakers were choosing a president under tight security Wednesday, with roads closed and residents urged to remain indoors over fears of a strike on the capital by Shabaab militants. Freshly elected MPs and senators held a first round of voting in a hangar at the airport, in the capital's most secured zone, whittling down a field of 21 candidates to three veteran politicians from two of the country's main clans.
For a second round, incumbent President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, 61 - in the lead with 88 votes - is facing off against fellow Hawiye clansman ex-president Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, 52 and former premier Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed 'Farmajo', 55, who is a Darod.
In the absence of political parties, clan remains the organising principle of Somali politics, and the multiple different clans will likely shift their strategies in subsequent rounds until one candidate wins a two-thirds majority.
The long, drawn-out election has largely consisted of horsetrading between different clans, with widespread allegations of vote-buying and corruption, leaving it a distant process to the average Somali, who is also unlikely to see much benefit from its outcome.
The internationally-backed government still has limited control over a country where swathes of countryside are controlled by Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab militants who regularly launch deadly strikes against Mogadishu.
The country, renowned as the world's foremost failed state, in 2012 held the first elections inside its own borders sine the 1991 overthrow of Siad Barre's military regime which led to decades of anarchy and the rise of the Shabaab.
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