 When we think about Somalia, we think of a war-wracked country. We think of a country that is in great degeneration. We think of famine, starvation. We think of constant conflict. Into this fiery mix, a SOAS student called Abdi Guri decided to interrupt his studies, come back to the land of his birth and run for the presidency of Puntlan. That election was at the beginning of 2014. It wasn't by direct suffrage and vote, but by vote of the parliamentary, members and in consultation with the elders of the various clans that have traditionally been the authoritative voices in that country. Abdi, you were a co-politator, the cosmopolitan and a very highly educated man, someone who's very much at home in North America and also here in London. Why did you want to go back to Puntlan to run for the presidency of that country? Simply because throughout my entire life I have seen money and money problems. First of all, suffering endured by Somali people. Don't ask what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country. I think that reminds me how morally we need to do something about Somali. But what can you do? It's one thing to say that you want to do something. It's a very noble and idealistic thing to say. But our impressions of this part of the world from outside of you is that this is an area of great chaos, of great violence, of great disorganization. How can you bring some kind of stability and how can you bring some kind of development and modernity to a country like this? I think everything is we have to use whatever mechanism. We have taken an example when I was in Somalia. My first superiority was to target the need of Somali people, such as families, women and children, who suffered the most. Many people forget that at one point in time, Puntland was a fabled country. It was the Venice of that part of the world, famous for its trade internationally, famous for its culture. The problems of Somalia really began in the 20th century, the great metropolitan powers seeking to control it and to conquer it. Both Italy and Great Britain were very much part of this mix, and it became a fractured territory competed for by the European powers. It finally gained independence as Somalia in 1960, and the different parts voted to come together as one country to try to cast off the divisions of colonialism. But in 1969, the country fell prey to dictatorship, Sian Barré seized power and ruled until 1991, when civil war broke out throughout the country, and in a time of great famine, bloodshed escalated. The old divisions re-errupted. The southern part of Somalia fell prey to increased war, increased tension, increased violence. Only in the north of the country was there a semblance of stability. Somaliland claimed independence for itself based on the colonial borders, and Puntland, taking the historical name of that part of Somalia with its very stable and prosperous past, declared itself to be an autonomous region. These countries seeing the rack and the ruin of the largest Somalia think they can make it forward into the future, and yet they also have great problems. One of the key objectives in Puntland is to seek not only development, but international legitimacy. The most important point of my policy was to increase transparency, to regain the trust of the people by removing an conflict of interest unbridled. In that, we can build a society in a fairness way. In addition to that, I also emphasized about security on all its forms. For example, we have a problem, we have extremism, we have other problems. Somalia is in collapse for quite some time, and unless you address all these issues, building new schools, creating new jobs, building new facilities to make able the Somalians to come together, I think that's the only way forward. But Abdi made a huge impact, not because he tried to buy votes like some of his rivals, promising political favours, economic favours and trade-offs in the future should he become president, but by stressing an agenda that not only took into account traditional sensitivities, but an outreach to those people who have been traditionally marginalized in all parts of Somalia. He reached out to young people, those who will be the future of the country, and very, very unusually in this country he reached out to the women. If you had become president of Point Lawn, what would have been the role of women in your administration? We have to empower women. Democracy is a universal. We need women to participate in politics. We have to include women if we want our country to work. There are victims of war, there are victims of rape, there are victims of violence. So, and they were resilient. They stood fast. If I became president, I have to empower women. I reiterate that. I have to empower women to give them chance, because they are lacking chance, and that's the way that I see in politics. In his campaign rallies, you can see both women and young people are part of the audience that he has attracted as the sole candidate promising an effort to break through from the shackles of the past to a technological, modern future mixed with the best values of traditionalism and emphasizing all sectors of society, including those who are young, including those who are female. Without them, he says, there is no future. Without them, there is no Point Lawn. Somalia needs everything, but the only thing that we can do now is to start step by step. We have to go up to the ladder and make sure whatever we can to help our people.