NAIROBI, Oct. 10 (Xinhuanet) -- Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, leader of the autonomous Somali region of Puntland, and Abdullahi Ahmed Addou, former Somali ambassador to Washington and then finance minister, entered the runoff of the country's presidential poll held here Sunday, according to unofficial results.

   Yusuf Ahmed gained 144 votes in the second round of Somali presidential election, while Ahmed Addou gained 77 votes. The other candidate Jama Barre, half-brother of Mohammed Siad Barre, the president toppled in 1991, gained only 36 votes.

   Five parliamentarians of Somalia's 275-member parliament didn't vote in the second round of race while 13 votes were declared vain.

   Somali lawmakers started voting for president of the Horn of Africa country on Sunday. The new president is expected to appoint a prime minister to form a government, mandated to lead Somalia through a five-year transitional period.

   A total of 28 contestants including a woman were competing for the presidency in what is widely seen as the culmination of a tortuous two-year peace process in Kenya, mediated by the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD).

   However, two presidential aspirants withdrew from the contest at the last minute, leaving 26 candidates to take an oath binding them to abide by whatever results from the voting.

   Since a a first ballot failed to give any candidate the two-thirds majority required for an outright victory, six top runners were qualified to go to the second round. However, the last three have decided to withdraw from the second round.

   According to election organizers, in the likely event of no candidate obtaining more than two-thirds of the ballot, the top six runners will go to a second round. If none of them gains a two-thirds majority, the two leading candidates will face off in a third round, on a simple majority basis.  

   Since the breakdown of the Somali central government in 1991, conflict and famine have killed hundreds of thousands of people, plunging the country into anarchy.

   Under the auspices of IGAD, which groups Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda and Somalia, Somali National Reconciliation Conference began in October 2002 in Kenya.

   The presidential elections come after the election of the speaker of the transitional federal parliament of Somalia on Sept. 15 and his two deputies on Sept. 22 and the inauguration of the transitional parliament on Aug. 29.  Enditem