Beneath the placid surface, trouble was brewing for Gambia's president Yahya Abdul-Aziz Jammeh, in power for 22 years. Jammeh lost last Friday's presidential poll to Adama Barrow, a real estate company owner who was declared the winner a day after Gambians cast their votes. “I did not wish to contest or find out why they did not vote for me. I leave that with God,” a humbled Jammeh told reporters after the results were announced. “Gambians have decided that I should take the backseat,” he mused. Gambians took to the streets of the capital Banjul on Friday to celebrate Jammeh's downfall. Crowds gathered outside the main opposition parties' headquarters to celebrate the victory of western-style democracy in the country. Even Gambia's neighbouring West African states were pleased. “We were pleasantly surprised,” former Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a Nobel laureate and current head of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), said in an interview with the BBC. Gambians have been suffering in anguish and heartache, until the ache turned to triumph for the long-suffering people of this tiny sliver of a country hugging the River Gambia in West Africa. Barrow has pledged to release the political prisoners incarcerated under Jammeh, whose defeat in the elections is a rare turn for the crop of long-term African leaders who have used their time in office to amass wealth and power. Africa is thus embracing democracy and opening up, while the United States and Europe are flirting with populism and xenophobic isolationism. To his detractors, Jammeh was a callous and brutish despot, but he could also display magnanimity and tenderness. When celebrating his birthday in Banjul in May 2013 and spotting a street vendor selling peanuts with a baby strapped to her back, he donated a $1,000 gift to the street hawker, much to her amazement. Jammeh, who seized power in a coup in 1994, conceded defeat soon after the results were announced. He was elected president in September 1996 and was re-elected in October 2001 with about 53 per cent of the vote. Presidential polls were again held in September 2006. Away from the ballot box, attention will now focus on how effectively Barrow can deal with the aspirations of his impoverished compatriots whose expectations of emancipation have been frustrated by economic stagnation. Social issues will resurface. Much to his credit, Jammeh earlier announced a ban on child marriages, and Gambia under Jammeh banned female genital mutilation, a practice previously common in the West African nation. Yet, in January 2007 Jammeh also claimed he could cure HIV/AIDS with herbal remedies and instructed patients to cease using anti-retroviral drugs. The Jammeh Foundation for Peace was launched by Jammeh himself to eradicate poverty among Gambians, improve agricultural production, and sponsor educational opportunities for needy students. The foundation has a hospital sponsored by the former president and provides medical services to the general public. Jammeh also founded his own political party, the Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC). The Gambian opposition's assertiveness will test the unity of the opposition now that Jammeh has stepped down as president. Consensus will likely be reached by turning a blind eye to Jammeh's excesses, and Barrow has declared that Jammeh will not be brought to book for his actions while in office. Barrow, 51, a former security guard at a London department store, assumed the leadership of the opposition United Democratic Party after its founder, Ousainou Darboe, was sentenced to three years in jail for organising a demonstration against Jammeh. Barrow was backed by seven other opposition parties. A main predicament will be what to do with Jammeh's APRC now that Jammeh is no longer president. Barrow obtained 263,515 votes, while Jammeh got 212,099, in Friday's polls, according to the Gambian Elections Commission. Jammeh earlier won 72 per cent of the vote in the 2011 presidential poll. The challenge for Barrow and his team now will be to fulfil the aspirations of the Gambian people. There are alarming signs, but also hopeful ones. None of this means that the blight of poverty will be lifted from the country overnight. Jammeh has undertaken to vacate his office by January, Barrow told reporters on Saturday after meeting with his coalition partners. Like former Liberian president Sirleaf, Jammeh will likely now retire from politics and retreat to his personal plantation to live in peace of mind and prayer.
