Gambians head for polls to vote for new assembly

Gambians voted on Thursday in the first election since longtime leader Yahya Jammeh left power, with several parties contesting the polls after 22 years of effective one-party rule.

Voting started at 8am with dozens queuing beforehand at roadside polling stations, but participation appeared to have dropped by midday.

More than 880,000 Gambians were eligible to vote and polls were open until 5pm.

“We just hope that the voter turnout increases,” said Manneh Sallah, vice-chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC). EU observer Maria Arena, from Belgium, also said that after a busy start, “turnout is a little low”.

The first results were expected on Thursday evening and a full set by late Friday morning.

The poll is a test for several former opposition parties that united to form a coalition in December to oust Jammeh from power and deliver Adama Barrow as the new president.

Internal tensions mean those parties were not running together in Thursday’s legislative polls. As a result, nine parties were in competition, including Jammeh’s Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC) and the strongest traditional opposition force, the United Democratic Party (UDP).

“Gambians are coming out to complete the establishment of a new government,” said UDP leader Ousainou Darboe, who serves as foreign minister in Barrow’s coalition cabinet. “I’m not worried about any party but I’m also not underrating any party,” he said.

Posing a threat is The Gambia Democratic Congress (GDC), a youth-led party which did not join the governing coalition and whose leader, Mama Kandeh, came third in the 2016 presidential poll.

There are 53 seats up for grabs in The Gambia’s national assembly, five more than in 2012. Five extra places are appointed by the president to give a total of 58 seats in the legislative chamber, which was long derided as a rubber stamp for Jammeh’s executive orders.

Alagie Bubacar Jallow, an unemployed hotel worker, said his town had long been ignored by the Jammeh regime because it was seen as an opposition stronghold.