Gambia's Jammeh in shock election loss after 22-year rule

Record ID: 75196

  • Title: Gambia's Jammeh in shock election loss after 22-year rule
  • Date: 2nd December 2016
  • Summary: BANJUL, GAMBIA (FILE - 1994) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) GAMBIA PRESIDENT, YAHYA JAMMEH, SAYING: "Well, we have no plans to stay long. All we are here for is to set a just system and to put up structures that can show that what happened in the past 30 years would never happen again."
  • Embargoed: 17th December 2016 14:29
  • Keywords: Banjul Gambia election Jammeh Barrow Kandeh coup
  • Location: BANJUL, GAMBIA
  • City: BANJUL, GAMBIA
  • Country: Gambia
  • Reuters ID: LVA0025B6ZOEF
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: THIS EDIT CONTAINS MATERIAL WHICH WAS ORIGINALLY 4:3
    Gambian leader Yahyah Jammeh, who vowed to rule the tiny West African nation for "a billion years", was handed a shock election defeat on Friday (December 2) 22 years after seizing power in a coup.
    The electoral commission head declared Adama Barrow president-elect on state television, with 45.5 percent of the vote against Jammeh's 36.7 percent.
    Barrow told Reuters by telephone on Friday he was expecting a phone call from Jammeh conceding defeat.
    Defeat and a concession from Jammeh would be momentous.
    Earlier this week he said that his "presidency and power are in the hands of Allah and only Allah can take it from me", and on one occasion even said he would remain in office for "a billion years".
    Voting against Jammeh was a rare show of defiance against a leader human rights groups say routinely crushes dissent by imprisoning and torturing opponents.
    Gambians voted on Thursday (December 1) amid a total blackout of the internet and all international calls, and with land borders sealed, in a poll posing the first serious challenge to Jammeh since he seized power in a coup in 1994.
    He previously said he had invented a herbal cure for AIDS that only works on a Thursdays.
    He has also arrested hundreds of people on suspicion of being witches or wizards and threatened to slit the throats of and decapitate homosexuals.
    Jammeh's supporters deny abuses and he has often criticised Western powers for meddling in African affairs.
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