NAIROBI, Oct. 10 (Xinhuanet) -- Somali lawmakers from different clans chose a president here Sunday, which is widely seen as the culmination of a tortuous two-year peace process in Kenya, however,tough jobs are still ahead for Somalia after more than a dozen years of violence and chaos.

    Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, leader of the autonomous Somali region of Puntland, won the election on the simple majority basis in the third round. He will in turn appoint a prime minister mandated to lead the government in the five-year transitional period.

    Yusuf vowed to bring stability to his war-ravaged country whileaddressing the newly inaugurated transitional parliament and the regional foreign affairs ministers who observed the vote.

    "I am pleased to have the honor of serving Somalis again. I am informing you tonight that I will do my best to reconcile Somalia and bring peace and stability to our country," he said.

    Delegates to the Somali reconciliation conference formed the transitional federal parliament in August this year. The 275-member assembly last month elected a speaker, who on Sunday presided over the election of the president at the Kasarani SportsStadium in Nairobi.

    Once the federal government is fully constituted, it will move to Mogadishu, the Somali capital, to embark on its challenging mandate of rehabilitation and restoration of law and order in a country ravaged by factional warfare since 1991, when the regime of Muhammad Siad Barre was toppled.

    The transitional government's immediate task will be to lead Somalia through a five-year period leading up to general elections.

    This entails restoring peace and stability to the country, disarming the militias and creating a national security force, creating a government from scratch, rebuilding the economy, and restoring basic minimum services such as education and health careto ordinary citizens.

    This would be an enormous task for any government, and will be relatively easy now since the various faction leaders have joined hands together to establish a central government.

    In October 2002, a reconciliation conference aimed at bringing together Somalia's divided population began in Kenyan western townof Eldoret. This was the 14th attempt to convene a national reconciliation conference after a decade since Somalia's government collapsed and the country plunged into civil war.

    All previous attempts had failed, and many observers held little hope that this one would succeed. Yet, two years later, andto the surprise of many outsiders, there's broad participation in the peace process in Nairobi, resulting in the creation of a Transitional Federal Parliament, which has also elected the president.

    Indeed, the Somali population has grown weary of war and is desperate for any form of government. The massive show of support evidenced in Kenya after the election of the speaker and his deputies signifies more that the population supports the new government.

    More importantly, the war fatigue extends to the faction militiamen, many of whom see the soon to be formed new transitional government as an opportunity for them to abandon their current lifestyle and enter regular employment, perhaps in the new police force.

    Aside from people's skeptical view about the chances of peace and governance in Somalia, for the talks in Kenya were the 14th such process in a decade, and the factionalism in Somalia has beenmore and more serious, not weakening over the years, the upcoming new government is also faced with other challenges.

    Before the election, the candidates have called on the international community and the Arab world, in particular, to structure a Marshall Plan recovery package to rebuild Somalia, because the government is penniless, as one of the Somali lawmakers said raising revenue in a country where drought and endless conflict have reduced much of it to a dust bowl is a big difficulty facing the new government.

    However, analysts say the West is still very wary of reenteringSomalia, given its past experiences.

    The Somalis back home are fully behind the government now, but they will want to see results soon if they are to continue with their support. And their demands differ. Business leaders will want to see an improvement in their own conditions, initially through an improvement in security conditions, but then also in greater access to international finance.

    The Islamic clerics will want to see a move toward a Islamic government. The population will want to see the government delivering services, especially in terms of health and education.

    The militiamen on the other hand want jobs and education. Many gunmen are young and often uneducated and from rural areas.

    "If there is no education, there is no knowledge and there is no life. The problem in Somalia is ignorance. The only things they(the young gunmen) know are how to use guns," said Mohamed Farah, 40, a Somali observer at the peace talks.

    Yet, all these things cost money. Fortunately, aid has already begun to enter Somalia from some Arab countries. The Africa Union has also agreed to send security forces to help the government to restore order in Mogadishu.

    The imminent new government is also challenged to restore relations with its neighboring states for their actions and interests have ever complicated the peace process.

    Diplomatic sources say the success of the new government and its president now depends heavily on receiving the backing of the faction leaders, but Djibouti, Ethiopia and Eritrea have armed andsupported different rival Somali factions in an extension of theirborder war.

    Ethiopia's eastern region, Region 5 or the Ogaden, is populatedby ethnic Somalis (the region was conquered by Ethiopia in the late 19th century), and there have been repeated attempts since Somali independence in 1961 to have the region incorporated into agreater Somalia.

    This led to a major war between the two countries in 1977, in which Somalia was defeated by Ethiopia, which was assisted by the then Soviet Union and Cuba.

    Thus, Ethiopia's position toward Somalia has always been ambivalent: while continued instability in Somalia does threaten to spill over into Ethiopia, the restoration of a central Somali authority also constitutes a threat to Ethiopia as it brings with it the possibility of a resurgence of Somali irredentism.

    Kenya also faces a similar threat from Somali irredentism, given that northeastern Kenya is also populated by ethnic Somalis (formerly the Northern Frontier District).

    However, Ethiopia's position toward the Kenya-led process has changed from the very beginning, and has restored relations with the front-line States -- Kenya, Uganda, Djibouti, Sudan and Eritrea.

    For both Ethiopia and Kenya, and neighboring states, the restoration of a central government in Somalia brings with it the possibility of hope, a move that will ensure that a large number of refugees currently in the east African nations will have to return back hence improvement of security.

    The president-elect is expected to embark on regional tour to restore relations with Somali neighbors. Enditem