Jammeh Re-elected in a Disputed Poll

Tuesday, November 29, 2011 Gambia’s incumbent president Yahya Jammeh on Thursday swept the disputed 2011 presidential poll with an unprecedented landslide victory of 72 percent.

“Having polled 470,550 votes [out of 657, 904 votes cast], I hereby declare Yahya Jammeh, candidate for APRC duly elected as president…” declared IEC chairman on Friday afternoon, triggering a mix feeling of joy and mourning.

Jammeh, who had lost in only one constituency in the 2006 presidential election in which he bagged 67 percent this time defeated his challengers in all the 48 constituencies.
His long time closest rival, Ousainou Darboe of main opposition UDP polled 114,177 votes, representing 17 percent of the votes cast - a massive decline from his 35, 32 and 29 percent in 1996, 2001 and 2006 respectively.

Independent candidate Hamat Bah, who was backed by a coalition of four parties dubbed United Front, polled 73,060 accounting for 11 percent of the total votes cast.
The voter turnout was eighty-three percent, which is still lower than the 1996 and 2001 voter turn out of over 88 and 89 percent respectively, but also above the 2006 voter turn out of 53 percent.

RESULT DISMISSED
However, main opposition UDP led alliance of three parties Friday dismissed the results as ‘bogus and fraudulent.
UDP says the process was flawed, but did not provide details. It however promises to respond to what it calls unacceptable results with appropriate action.

“This fight is not going to be done through war or unrest. We will fight this war intellectually,” UDP campaign manager, Lamin Dibba told a sea of the party’s sympathisers that crowed at Darboe’s pipeline residence even before the final results were counted.
The party and its alliance partners, GMC and PPP urged Gambians and the international community not to validate the results.

The independent candidate and his backers have convened a meeting on Friday, but their position is yet to be known at the time of going to press.
”A final statement will be issued after debriefing the regional coordinators,” he says in a preliminary statement issued during the weekend.

However, firebrand politician Lamin Waa Juwara, who now works as a Governor told U.S based Gambian online newspaper, FREEDOM that the verdict represents the wishes of The Gambian population.
“ The elections were free, fair and transparent. The verdict of the people should be respected,” Mr. Juwara was quoted as saying.
However, Dodou Kassa Jaata, a counting agent for the UDP has walkout from the IEC counting station in Bakau, FREEDOM newspaper reported.

“ I refused to sign the results because there is a fraud. The ruling party had assembled uniform men and women in Bakau under the pretext that they were there to provide security—only for them to vote in Bakau, and other localities. I asked my team to call it a day, and pack,” Mr Jatta was quoted as saying.

THE ECOWAS BOYCOT
Ahead of the poll, ECOWAS said, the vote would not be free or fair because of intimidation by the governing party.
ECOWAS said, the pre-election monitors had found intimidation, a lack of press freedom, a lack of neutrality from state institutions and “an opposition and electorate cowed by repression and intimidation”.

APRC UNDETTERED
Meanwhile, the controversy did not deter the ruling APRC from celebrating its biggest victory since the country’s return to multi party politics following a two year transition from Jammeh led junta that brought a forceful end to Gambia’s founding president Dawda Jawara’s 30 plus year democratic rule.
President-elect Yahya Jammeh was himself at the helm of jubilant affairs at July 22 Square, another symbol of his claimed revolution at the entrance to the capital, Banjul.
“I will not allow the minority to destabilise the country since the majority have decided,” Jammeh told jubilant supporters in a brief statement on Saturday.


Courtsey of the dailynews.gm