As far as pres­i­den­tial po­si­tions go, So­ma­lia must rank as one of the tough­est in the world.

The Horn of Africa coun­try has been mired in con­flict, poverty and Is­lamist in­sur­gency over the past two decades. So­ma­lia only es­tab­lished its first fed­eral gov­ern­ment in 2012 af­ter more than 20 years of po­lit­i­cal vac­uum, fol­low­ing the top­pling of Siad Barre in 1991. Bar­re’s demise re­sulted in a pro­tracted civil war that aided the evo­lu­tion of Al-Shabab, a mil­i­tant group with ties to Al-Qaeda, which con­tin­ues to plague the coun­try de­spite more than 20,000 African Union troops be­ing de­ployed to de­feat the is­lamist in­sur­gents. So­ma­lia also has one of the weak­est economies in the world, rank­ing 152 out of 195 coun­tries in terms of na­tional GDP in 2015.

Nev­er­the­less, scores of can­di­dates are ex­pected to vie for the pres­i­dency when So­ma­lia holds a pres­i­den­tial elec­tion in Oc­to­ber, pre­ceded by sen­a­to­r­ial and par­lia­men­tary polls. Newsweek con­sid­ers some of the key can­di­dates hop­ing to lead So­ma­lia out of tur­moil.

The In­cum­bent: Has­san Sheikh Mo­hamud

Elected in 2012 to lead So­ma­li­a’s first proper gov­ern­ment in two decades, Mo­hamud is stand­ing for re-elec­tion in the Oc­to­ber bal­lot, in which MPs will vote for their pre­ferred pres­i­den­tial can­di­date. A for­mer peace ac­tivist who has re­mained in So­ma­lia through­out the civil war, Mo­hamud leads the Peace and De­vel­op­ment Party, which he has at­tempted to put above the clan ri­val­ries that dog So­mali pol­i­tics. Un­der Mo­hamud’s lead­er­ship, So­ma­lia has grad­u­ally be­gan rein­te­grat­ing into the in­ter­na­tional com­mu­nity, es­tab­lish­ing and de­vel­op­ing ties with the United States and Eu­ro­pean Union among oth­ers. But Al-Shabab has con­tin­ued to ter­ror­ize the coun­try, in­ten­si­fy­ing its at­tacks in 2016 and at­tack­ing gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and civil­ians, as well as mil­i­tary tar­gets.

A supporter of Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud waves a Somali flag following Mohamud’s election in Mogadishu, on September 11, 2012. Mohamud is expected to run for re-election in elections scheduled for October.ABDURASHID ABDULLE ABIKAR/AFP/GETTYIMAGES

The Prime Min­is­ter: Omar Ab­di­rashid Ali Shar­marke

A Cana­dian-ed­u­cated for­mer United Na­tions diplo­mat, Shar­marke had a brief spell as So­ma­li­a’s am­bas­sador to the U.S. in 2014 be­fore he was ap­pointed to the post of prime min­is­ter by Mo­hamud in De­cem­ber 2014. The son of for­mer So­mali prime min­is­ter and pres­i­dent Ab­di­rashid Ali Sher­marke, who was as­sas­si­nated in 1969, Shar­marke is cur­rently in his sec­ond spell as pre­mier—he served briefly un­der for­mer pres­i­dent Sheikh Sharif Ahmed be­tween 2009 and 2010 be­fore re­sign­ing due to a stand-off with the pres­i­dent. Shar­marke no­tably backed a cam­paign to end fe­male gen­i­tal mu­ti­la­tion (FGM) in So­ma­lia ear­lier in 2016—the coun­try has one of the high­est rates of the prac­tice in the world.

The Sole Fe­male Can­di­date: Fad­umo Dayib

Never has a woman con­tested for, let alone win, the top po­lit­i­cal role in So­ma­lia. But Dayib, who fled as a refugee from So­ma­lia to Fin­land in her child­hood, is de­ter­mined that her can­di­dacy will not sim­ply be for nov­elty value. She told Newsweek in April that “if So­mali cit­i­zens were given an op­por­tu­nity, the would elect a woman into of­fice.” She said her pri­or­i­ties would in­clude in­creas­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for young peo­ple, so that they were not lured into mil­i­tancy or onto dan­ger­ous mi­gra­tion routes. Dayib also said she would be will­ing to ne­go­ti­ate with Al-Shabab, pro­vided the mil­i­tants stopped at­tack­ing civil­ians and cut ties with in­ter­na­tional ex­trem­ist groups.

Fadumo Dayib is the first woman to run for the presidency of Somalia in the country’s history.STEPHANIE MITCHELL/HARVARD UNIVERSITY

The Ex-Pres­i­dent: Sharif Sheikh Ahmed

Ahmed served as So­ma­li­a’s pres­i­dent be­tween 2009 and 2012 fol­low­ing years as a promi­nent leader within the Union of Is­lamic Courts (ICU). Con­sid­ered a mod­er­ate Is­lamist, Ahmed was the chair­man of the ICU when it seized con­trol of the cap­i­tal Mo­gadishu in 2006 for around six months, be­fore be­ing dri­ven out by Ethiopia. The ICU’s mil­i­tant wing later evolved into Al-Shabab, though Ahmed was not as­so­ci­ated with the hard­lin­ers and even­tu­ally jointly au­tho­rized the de­ploy­ment of Kenyan sol­diers to So­ma­lia in 2011 to fight the ex­trem­ist group. Beaten in the 2012 elec­tions by Mo­hamud, Ahmed is ex­pected to con­test the 2016 vote.

Former Somali President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed (R) addresses a crowd in Mogadishu on August 6, 2012. Ahmed lost the 2012 election after serving as the country’s leader since 2009.ABDURASHID ABDULLE ABIKAR/AFP/GETTYIMAGES

The Spurned Prime Min­is­ter: Mo­hamed Ab­dul­lahi Mo­hamed

A dual U.S.-So­mali na­tional, Mo­hamed—bet­ter known as Far­majo—served as prime min­is­ter un­der Ahmed for un­der a year be­fore he was forced out un­der a deal that ex­tended the pres­i­den­tial man­date of Ahmed. Far­majo ini­tially re­sisted the deal, which was met with protests in Mo­gadishu, but later ac­cepted “in the in­ter­est of the So­mali peo­ple.” He was elim­i­nated in the first round of vot­ing in the 2012 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion but ap­pears to be pop­u­lar among So­ma­lis—his Face­book page has more than 76,000 likes.