By Opposition claims victory is sure for rival contender, Adama Barrow
By John Eche
The people of Gambia go to the polls Thursday in elections that will determine whether maximum dictator, Yahyah Jammeh will continue with his unbridled domination of the country since staging a militiary coup and later civilianising himself in office some three decades ago.
Hours before the polls open, hints are that Jammeh may once again coast home with yet another landslide win though the opposition is asserting that his closest challenger, Adama Barrow of the Alliance may be leading the incumbent in yet to be verified pre-election polls by as much as 15% of the total tally of respondents.
A maverick, who claims to have a herbal cure for AIDS and who has continued to run the country with an iron fist since his coming to the scene in 1994, the election is being seen as a make and break moment for the tiny island-state.
Gambia, also called, Africa’s ‘smiling coast’ on account of its exotic Atlantic Ocean-washed beached, has only been led by two leaders since achieving independence and self-rule in the 1960s.
It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean and almost completely encircled by Senegal, its neighbouring West African state with which it had shared a failed confederal arrangement decades ago.
The election is also being considered epochal because it is coming as it is after Jammeh has maintained a sustained clampdown on the opposition as well as pledged to take the country out of the international Criminal Court, which is incidentally being headed by the Gambian, Fatou Bensouda.
Gambian Pesident, Yahyah Jammeh
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