Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, Somalia’s 47-year old president, is a media savvy politician who has inculcated a sophisticated image on the global media scene as a moderate reformist who is doing the most difficult job on earth — trying to bring peace to his country. 

To Ethiopia and Kenya, who helped him get elected the president of the Transition Federal Government in Somalia, Sheikh Sharif is the man of the struggle, a former schoolteacher who was drawn to fight Al Shabaab after his pupils were kidnapped by the terrorists.
On Monday, however, he shocked regional security specialists when he withdrew his support for Kenya’s military incursion into Somalia.

The Kenyan authorities, who claimed to have involved him in the planning of the onslaught, demanded clarifications, while his own prime minister and his people protested against his words.

Whatever his misgivings, Sheikh Sharif’s public position puts him in clear and present danger from both friends and enemies.

His apparent unease with Kenya’s military adventure inside Somalia has put him in the limelight regarding his strategy for solving the long-running Somalia problem.

Even though President Sharif later expressed his readiness to work with Kenya, his earlier denunciation of Kenya’s military campaign revealed that he is under some sort of pressure, either from forces within his government or within Al Shabaab itself.

His anxiety over the Kenyan intervention appears to be based on his experience as the chairman of the Union of Islamic Courts in 2006 when Ethiopia, with the support of the US, invaded Somalia and drove out the UIC.

In particular, he is opposed to Kenya’s mission to carve out a section of Somalia to create an autonomous region of Jubaland to act as a “buffer zone.” 

With an easy demeanour, an image of a moderate Muslim and as the chairman of UIC- an amalgamation of clan-based courts formed to fight the warlords and criminals who were terrorising Mogadishu residents through killings and extortion- Sheikh Sharif was seen by the Somali people as a man of peace.

He was, however, regarded with suspicion by the West, who saw the Islamic Courts as an embodiment of Islamic extremism.

In 2007, Sheikh Sharif first took refuge in Kenya before settling in Yemen. His former comrade-in-arms, Sheikh Dahir Hassan Aweys, escaped to Eritrea, where he founded Hizbul Islam, which is currently working together with the Al Shabaab.

While in exile, Sheikh Sharif joined a new group, the Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia, created in September 2007  in Asmara, when Somali Islamists and opposition leaders joined forces to fight the Transitional Federal Government and the occupation of Somalia by Ethiopia.

Among them were Sheikh Sharif, DahirAweys, current Speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden and the former TFG deputy prime minister Hussein Mohamed Farah. Its aim was to remove the Ethiopian-backed government either through negotiations or war.

While at the helm of UIC, Sheikh Sharif believed that TFG, that was then led by former president, Abdullahi Yusuf, was formed in Nairobi without the involvement of Somali people and could not earn the respect of the Somali people or make its presence felt.

He then argued that TFG was an appendage of Addis Ababa and was incapable of making independent decisions that might go against the interests of Ethiopia.

However, he was later to become the beneficiary of similar elections in January 2009 away from home in Djibouti

Election rounds

At least 16 candidates were lined up for elections. They included then prime minister Nur Hassan Hussein, MP Mohamed Afrah Qanyare (an ex-Mogadishu warlord), MP Hassan Abshir Farah (a former prime minister), Ali Mohammed Ghedi (also a former prime minister), Ali Khalif Galaid (another former prime minister) and Mohammed Said Hersi Morgan (an ex-Kismayu warlord)
There were three rounds of voting.

The first round reduced the field of candidates to six, the second to just two, with the winner decided in a run-off round.

The battle was mainly between Nur Hassan Hussein and Sharif Sharif as others progressively stood down, amid speculation that Ethiopia was arm-twisting other candidates to support Sheikh Sharif. He won the run-off with 293 to 126 votes.

Sheikh Sharif, 47, despite his legal training, worked as a secondary school teacher before joining the UIC in 2003 after his 12-year old student was kidnapped.

Born in 1964 in Jowhar in Middle Shabelle province — 90km south of Mogadishu — Sheikh Sharif had his primary and secondary education in Somalia before joining the University of Kordofan in Sudan, where he studied geography and Arabic.
He later went to study in Libya for a degree in law. He returned to Somalia in 2000 and founded the Somali Graduate Society, with the aim of teaching Somalis how to better understand their culture.

When a colleague, Mohamed Dhere, established a regional administration in Jowhar, Sheikh Sharif joined him and was appointed the head of the judiciary and law. However, the two later fell out due to what he said were differences over the administration of justice.

Following the disagreement, he went back to Mogadishu and took up a job as a secondary school teacher.

He joined the Islamic Courts towards the end of 2003, where he was elected to head the courts in Sisi area, one of the most notorious areas for kidnappings and killings.