Commonwealth cries foul as Jammeh wins landslide victory

Yahya Jammeh has been elected for another five years as president of The Gambia after winning almost three quarters of the vote in Friday’s election, but observers have said the run-up to election day might have interfered with the result.

Out of the total 392,685 votes cast in Friday’s election, 264,404 - or 67.4 percent - were for Jammeh, the Gambian Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) announced on Sunday afternoon.

Lawyer Ousainou Darboe of the main opposition United Democratic Party won 104,808 votes, or 27 percent. The third contender, Halifa Sallah of the New Alliance for Democracy and Development received less than 8 percent. More than a third of the country’s 665,000 registered voters did not bother casting a vote.

Salim Ahmed Salim, chairperson of an observer mission from the Commonwealth international organisation said in a statement that “the process was well organised and things went smoothly. The voters were able to express their will and the result will reflect their wish”.

However, the statement said the commission was “made to be aware of events in the lead-up to election day, which might have impacted on the outcome”.

The observer group’s statement highlighted the timing of the president’s national campaign and the “open demonstration of support by public officers for a particular party, especially those in the security services” as having had the “potential of affecting the level of the playing field”.

The Commonwealth mission also said that a memorandum of understanding it had brokered between political parties in September 2005 had not been respected. The agreement committed the ruling party not to use state resources for campaign purposes and to provide equal access to state-run media.

Pictures of a grinning President Jammeh dressed in a traditional white robe were plastered all around the country in the weeks leading up to the election. Some of the posters also carried the names of state-run companies.

At his first news conference after the result was announced on Sunday, the former coup leader said he was going to make the former British protectorate “the best place in the world”.

Jammeh said he had managed to develop the country over the past 12 years despite donors curbing funding after the Commonwealth dismissed the 1996 poll as unfair.

"My World Bank has always been the almighty Allah and he will always remain my World Bank. I don't look up to anybody but the almighty Allah to develop this country," he said. "The mere fact that we are poor does not mean that we have lost our sovereignty. The mere fact that we are poor does not mean that we can become somebody's stooge or poodle."

Asked about reports by international media watchdogs alleging widespread abuses against journalists in The Gambia, Jammeh said: “Let the whole world go to hell - if I have good reasons of closing down any newspaper offices I will do so.”

Responding to a question about the killing of Deyda Hydara, editor of The Point magazine in Banjul and correspondent for Agence France-Presse news agency, who was shot dead in his car in 2004, Jammeh dismissed his government’s alleged involvement.

"I don't believe in killing people. I believe in locking you up for the rest of your life. Then maybe at some point we say, ‘Oh, he is too old to be fed by the state,’ we release him and let him become destitute," Jammeh said. "Then everybody will learn a lesson from him."

Jammeh came to power in 1993 in a coup led by junior military officers to overthrow the country’s first post-independence president. The junta initially announced it would only stay in power for two years.

mc/nr/cs