The outgoing Adama Barrow was officially declared the winner of the presidential election in The Gambia on Sunday (December 5th) by the electoral commission.
He came out on top, after counting almost all the votes, the day after a crucial vote for a young democracy seeking to overcome its dictatorial past.
But his opponents have said they dispute these results even before the final proclamation, and reserve "all means of action".
Adama Barrow, whose accession to the presidency five years ago put an end to more than twenty years of dictatorship, was clearly ahead of his main competitor, Ousainou Darboe, in almost all of the 50 or so constituencies (out of 53) whose commission election had communicated the results late Sunday afternoon.
The election, which took place on Saturday, is played over a single round.
The Adama Barrow camp started celebrating in the streets of Banjul.
>> To read - The presidential election in The Gambia, a hope for justice for the victims of Yahya Jammeh
"To accept in good faith the outcome of this election"
"At this stage we reject the results announced so far" by the commission, Ousainou Darboe told reporters, alongside two other of the six competitors.
"All the means of action are on the table," he added, calling on "all Gambians to remain calm and peaceful" while investigations are carried out.
The representatives of these candidates present during the counting operations noted "a number of problems", he said.
Gambians flocked to the voting booths on Saturday, and, as a ballot, voted with a ball introduced through a pipe into one of the cans in the colors and effigy of each candidate, a process instituted under colonization because of widespread illiteracy.
About a million Gambians, out of a population of two million, were called upon to choose from among six candidates, all men, the one who will lead for five years the smallest country in mainland Africa, which is also one of the poorest in the world. world.
The election was heralded as a duel between incumbent Barrow and historic opponent Darboe.
Five years after the end of the dictatorship, democratic consolidation is one of the challenges of the election.
The fate of former dictator Yahya Jammeh and the economic crisis are others.
The international community will be attentive to the acceptance or the contesting by the losers of the results formalized by the commission, said a senior international diplomat speaking of "moment capital".
The Community of West African States (ECOWAS), a major player in the post-electoral crisis of 2015 and the forced departure of dictator Jammeh, called in a press release "all the candidates to accept in good faith the outcome of this election which will have neither winner nor loser, but only one winner, the Gambian people ”.
Five years ago, Adama Barrow, a former real estate developer now 56 years old and then almost unknown, defeated the prognosis and beat the dictator Jammeh after more than twenty years of regime characterized by a multitude of atrocities committed by the 'State and its agents: assassinations, enforced disappearances, rapes, acts of torture ...
Economic crisis
Yahya Jammeh, who refused to acknowledge his defeat, was forced into exile in Equatorial Guinea under the pressure of a West African military intervention.
The 2021 presidential election is the first without him since 1996.
Adama Barrow calls for the return of freedoms, the construction of roads and markets, and the pacification of relations with the international community.
Ousainou Darboe, 73, lawyer, four times second behind Yahya Jammeh in the presidential election, accuses Mr. Barrow of having failed in all his commitments to stay in power.
Adama Barrow reneged on his original promise to only stay in power for three years.
He has toned down his past commitments to holding those responsible for the crimes of the Jammeh years to account.
On the contrary, his newly created party has forged an alliance with that of the former autocrat.
The next president will have to decide whether or not to follow the recommendations of a commission charged with investigating the Jammeh period, which called for those responsible for the crimes committed during that time to be brought to justice.
Gambians interviewed by AFP expressed other concerns.
Almost half of Gambians live below the poverty line.
The country has been hit hard by the Covid-19.
Apart from agriculture, the country, with its beaches on the Atlantic, lived on tourism, whose flows have dried up.
Gambians suffer from unemployment, rising prices for rice, sugar or oil, and lack of access to healthcare.
With AFP
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