He has since appointed a new prime minister who has selected a cabinet that includes the country's first female foreign minister.

However, the government has not been universally well-received in Mogadishu. Somali political analyst Ibrahim Adow says the political newcomers leading the government are unprepared for the job.

"We can say 80 per cent of them don’t know about democracy," he says, "because its not one of the things people have practiced in the country before and the constitution itself is built on the basis of democracy." Abdow says that means it can be problematic for doing things that require political experience.

Security remains the biggest challenge for the new government. Just days after the new president was sworn into office in September, three suicide bombers struck outside a hotel in Mogadishu where he was meeting with a delegation from Kenya.

At the time, he said security would be his first, second and third priorities.

The situation has improved as the African Union peacekeeping force, AMISOM, working with Kenya and Ethiopia, has driven al-Shabab militants out of their strongholds in Mogadishu and south-central Somalia.

But Somali analyst, Abdiwahab Sheikh Abdisamed says Somalia's own national army still remains a remarkably weak institution, divided by internal clan rivalries.

“If today, God forbid, the AMISOM left abruptly, Somalia would go back to the clanism, clan competitions, warlordism, and so on and so forth. So, the current military personnel, mainly they came from the Hawiye clan, those around the Mogadishu areas, so are they loyal to the government? [It] is a question everyone is asking for himself,” Abdisamed said.