LONDON –
“We will win the biggest landslide this country has ever seen,” said Gambia’s president, Yahya Jammeh, before the small West African country’s recent election, and he had every reason to be confident. Jammeh had been in power for 22 years, and he knew how to run an election.
There was not the slightest indication that Jammeh was ready to surrender power. He said he was “proud to be a dictator,” promised to bury the “evil vermin called opposition 9 feet deep,” and once declared that he would rule “for 1 billion years if Allah wills it.” But when the marbles spoke last Friday morning, he had lost the election.
In Gambia, they vote by dropping marbles into different-colored drums, and when they were all counted an obscure property developer named Adama Barrow had 45 percent of the marbles. Jammeh had only 36 percent.
Source link : https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2016/12/06/commentary/world-commentary/gambia-short-billion-years/
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Publish date : 2016-12-06 08:00:00
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