Government-endorsed Sheikh Mukhtar won the 1966 assembly speakership

Evidence

We will never know whether Egal intended to join the SYL if he won the race for assembly Speaker as Osman had suggested to him, but he made a concerted effort in the campaign without a priori allegiance to the SYL. The election was held on March 8, 1966, and Sheikh Mukhtar Mohamed Hussein, endorsed by the government, received sixty-nine votes; Egal garnered forty-two; and a third candidate received four. Egal immediately called President Osman and told the president that he “was pleased with the democratic way in which the election took place.” — Abdi Ismail Samatar, Africa’s First Democrats, 873