BANJUL DECEMBER 2, 2016 (CISA) – Gambia’s electoral commission has declared opposition candidate Adama Barrow as the winner of the 2016 presidential election.
According to official results Adama Barrow won 263,515 votes 50,000 more than President Yahya Jammeh with 45.5 percent of the vote against Jammeh’s 36.7 percent during the elections held on December 1.
“Having received 263, 515 votes out of the total votes cast in the election, I hereby declare Adama Barrow newly elected to serve as president of the republic of the Gambia,” the chairman of the electoral commission, Alieu Momar Njie, has said.
He earlier told reporters in Banjul that President Yahya Jammeh who took power in a coup in 1994 is reportedly conceding defeat after ruling The Gambia for 22 years.
“It’s really unique that someone who has been ruling this country for so long has accepted defeat,” said Momar Njie.
Born in 1965 in small village near the market town of Basse, eastern Gambia Adama Barrow moved to London in the 2000s, reportedly working as a security guard at Argos department store in north London while he completed his studies.
He returned to Gambia in 2006 to set up his own property company. The 51-year-old won nomination to lead coalition of seven opposition parties against President Jammeh.
He criticized the lack of a two-term limit on the presidency and condemns the jailing of opposition politicians.
He promotes an independent judiciary, freedom for media and civil society and says he will introduce a three-year transitional government made up from members of the opposition coalition if he wins.
