Gambia’s main opposition replaces imprisoned leader

By Alieu Manneh

BANJUL, Gambia

Gambia’s main opposition party on Thursday unveiled its candidate for the country’s December presidential election, barely two months after its leader was jailed for three years.

Adama Barrow, 51, a native of Mankamang Kunda, a small village in the Upper River Region of the tiny West African nation, was presented to the media at the United Democratic Party (UDP)’s offices in the capital Banjul.

“There comes a time in the life of an oppressed nation when its people just get up and say ‘enough is enough’. We have seen it over and over again throughout the whole world. Gambia is not going to be an exception,” Barrow, a career businessman, told a crowd of supporters in his acceptance speech.

Former UDP leader, lawyer Ousainou Darboe, 68, and seven other executive members of the party plus tens of supporters were jailed in July for leading a demonstration demanding the release of a party member, Solo Sandeng, who later died in custody.

The UDP party was formed in 1996 and has since been President Yahya Jammeh’s main challenger athough their electoral fortunes have waned since then.

Since Darboe’s incarceration, another UDP member, Solo Kurumah, has also died in custody, an incident which brought Gambia to international attention with the UN, U.S. and EU demanding an independent investigation.

Gambians are going to the polls on Dec. 1. Opposition parties have expressed dissatisfaction with electoral conditions ahead of the vote.

The country’s Independent Electoral Commission has changed voting legislation, a process which the opposition say was meant to favor the ruling Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction which has been in power since Jammeh took over through a bloodless military coup in 1994.

The 2015 electoral amendment contains a section that clearly states that there can be no reform to the country’s electoral law six months before elections.