On 8/2/2017, a Former Prime Minister Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo was elected to the highest office in Somalia afterHassan Sheikh Mohamud conceded defeat after two rounds of voting.
In Brief
- Farmajo was born in 1962 in Mogadishu to a family originally from Gedo in south-western Somalia.
- Attended primary and secondary education in Mogadishu. After that he got his first job at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Somalia.
- Between 1985 and 1989 Farmajo served as the first Secretary at the Somali Embassy in Washington DC.
- He left Somalia to pursue a bachelor’s degree in history at the University of Buffalo in New York in 1989.
- It is at this time, Farmajo applied for political asylum in the United States after the Somali government collapsed in 1991.
- He continued his studies at the University of Buffalo where he obtained a master's degree in political sciences and international relations.
- Eventually he acquired American citizenship.
- Worked on several jobs in New York State, including at the Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority, the Erie County Division of Equal Employment Opportunity and the New York State Department of Transportation.
- In October 2010, President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed appointed him as Prime Minister in to take over from Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, who resigned from the post following a dispute.
- Following pressure from International Community Farmajo resigned from this post in June 2011
- In 2011, Farmajo formeda new political party, the Somali Justice and Equality Party, popularly known as TAYO.
- On February 8th 2017, he was elected as Somalia’s President with an astounding 184 votes while his opponents Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Sheikh Sharif Ahmed garnered 119 combined votes in the second round of voting.
