Thousands of Somalis fired guns in the air, cheered atop military vehicles and slaughtered camels on Thursday to celebrate the election of anti-corruption campaigner, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, as president.

Protected from Islamist attack inside the heavily fortified airport compound, lawmakers voted on Wednesday to elect the former United States worker, beating incumbent Hassan Sheikh Mohamud whose government repeatedly faced corruption scandals.

“Please fight corruption as you promised when you were campaigning for president,” Reuters quoted said Mohamed Jamaa, a resident of Mogadishu, as saying on Thursday.

Western donors welcomed his election. The European Union urged him to tackle corruption, while U.S called the transition a “step forward” despite concerns about irregularities.

Opponents had accused each other of vote buying.
In the central Somali towns of Dhusamareb and Guriel, a region where many are now facing a severe food crisis because of drought, the local authorities slaughtered camels and goats to hand out the meat to the poor.

Mohamed, a former prime minister better known in Somalia by his nickname “Farmajo” due to his love of cheese as a child, told lawmakers shortly after his election that his “core value is justice, to help the poor people.”

But the dual U.S-Somali citizen, who worked for years in the New York State Department of Transport, faces an uphill task. The aid-dependent state faces an imminent food crisis, empty coffers and an Islamist insurgency.