Opportunities and risks after Somali president quits

Yusuf, one of Somalia's first warlords, never seemed able to shake his warlord ways. Western diplomats have accused him of favoring his clan at the expense of all others, enabling corruption and too often trying to solve knotty political problems, which called for a little finesse, with the business end of a machine gun.

Kenyan officials even threatened sanctions against him this month, calling him "an obstacle to peace" and warning that unless he changed tack, he would no longer be welcome in Kenya. That was a serious threat because Yusuf, who claims to be 74 but is widely believed to be several years older, has gone to Kenya several times for lifesaving medical treatment for an ailing liver.

In stepping down, Yusuf said he could not unite Somalia's feuding leaders, news agencies reported, and as soon as he resigned, the United Nations' top official for Somalia, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, said that "a new page of Somalia history is now open."

But what will be written on it?

The scramble to succeed Yusuf could set off an ugly clan-based political melee. By contrast, the prime minister and other top Somali officials could give the post to a moderate Islamist leader, who might be the unifying figurehead that Somalia so desperately needs.

Or it may simply be too late because so much of the country has already fallen into the hands of powerful, hard-line Islamists who behead opponents and have, on at least one occasion, stoned to death a teenage girl who said she had been raped.

Rashid Abdi, a Somalia analyst at the International Crisis Group, which tracks conflicts worldwide, said Yusuf's resignation was "good news" because "it may create the opportunity to put a more conciliatory figure in charge of the government."

That figure could be someone like Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, a well-respected, moderate Islamic cleric who has struggled to walk the tightrope between negotiating with the transitional government and being dismissed as a sellout.

Earlier this year, Sheik Sharif's faction signed a power-sharing agreement with the transitional government, despite the president's objections, and many Somalis are hoping the deal will stick.

"If that power-sharing deal is applied, it will help a lot," said Muhammad Dheere, a pharmacist in Mogadishu, Somalia's battle-scarred capital. "Then the other problems could finish soon."

Somalia certainly has a lot of them. Famine is steadily creeping toward millions of people. Pirates off Somalia's coast have netted countless headlines and as much as $100 million in ransoms. Violence is rising again and finding new forms, with Islamist factions now fighting one another to take over the areas the government no longer controls.

Over the weekend, in two towns, a moderate Islamist group routed the Shabab, one of the nation's most fearsome and radical Islamist militias. But the Shabab were fighting back fiercely on Monday, and they also took over a United Nations food distribution office, imperiling a critical lifeline.

The thousands of Ethiopian troops who have been in Somalia for two years are threatening to leave any day now. If they do, the transitional government may have no one to protect it from Islamist insurgents, except a relatively small contingent of African Union peacekeepers and a few ragtag Somali militiamen.

It will not be easy finding someone qualified — and willing — to serve as president, considering all this. Somalia's transitional government, created four years ago (with Yusuf at the helm) as a temporary solution until Somalia could hold elections, is carefully balanced on a formula that divides power among Somalia's four major clans.

One considerable strike against Sheik Sharif is that he is not only from the same clan, but from the same subclan as the prime minister, who is well regarded and not believed to be going anywhere.

Many people expect that the next president could come from the same clan as Yusuf, to minimize clan friction. The speaker of Parliament will take over the presidency for one month until Parliament elects a new president.