Abdirashid Ali Shermarke

Abdirashid Ali Shermarke (1919-1969) was President of Somalia from June 10, 1967 until October 15, 1969.

He was born in 1919 at Haradere in the district of Obbia. He attended Quranic schools and completed his elementary education in 1936. He started his career as a trader and later on he became a civil servant in the then Italian Administration. He was supprted in Mogadishu, his mother was a Hawiye.

Shermarke joined the Somali Youth League immediately after its foundation in 1943. In 1944 he entered the British Administration Civil Service.

He completed his secondary education in 1953, while still as a civil servant. Shermarke got a scholarship to the University of Rome La Sapienza, where he graduated in political science in 1958. One year later, after returning from Italy, he was elected as a member of the Legislative Assembly.

When Somalia became independent on July 1, 1960, he was nominated by President Aden Abdullah Osman Daar as Prime Minister. As Prime Minister, Shermarke travelled abroad extensively in pursuit of a non-aligned and neutral foreign policy. He remained Prime Minister until March 1964, when the first general elections were held, and Shermarke was re-elected as a member of Parliament.

In the 1967 presidential elections Shermarke beat President Aden Abdullah Osman Daar. He became President of Somalia on June 10, 1967.

On October 15, 1969 Shermarke was assassinated by a policeman while on a visit to the north of Somalia, and his assassination was followed by a military coup d'état on October 21, 1969 (the day after Shermarke's funeral), in which the army seized power without encountering opposition. The coup was led by Major General Muhammad Siad Barre, the commander of the army.