Washington, DC — Preliminary results in Gambia's presidential elections indicate that incumbent President Yahya Jammeh has won with a comfortable majority.
With only two or three constituency results remaining, President Jammeh had polled 52.3% of the vote while his nearest rival, Lawyer Ousainou Darboe of the three-party opposition coalition polled 33%.
Hamat Bah of the National Reconciliation Party had polled 8%, former vice president Sheriff Dibba of the National Convention Party polled 4% and Sidia Jatta of the Peoples Democratic Organisation for Independence and Socialism polled 3%.
The fact that the president had polled more than 50% of the vote means there would be no second round of voting. Section 48 (3) of the country's 1997 constitution requires a second ballot in the event that none of the candidates poll over 50% in a first round of voting.
Speaking to allAfrica.com from the capital Banjul, coalition leader Darboe said he would respect the people's decision.
"Apart from the inducement factor [the plying of voters with cash by competing parties] I cannot complain much. The Gambian people are ready to suffer for another five years and there's nothing we can do about that," he said.
Mr Darboe said the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), which some had claimed would connive in rigging the elections in President Jammeh's favour, had "done an excellent job." He said his coalition was satisfied with the IEC's management of the vote and did not think that the results from the few remaining constituencies would affect the final outcome.
"I would respect the people's decision and would readily concede defeat," he said, allaying fears of post-election violence arising out of his coalition's contesting the results.
House majority leader Tamsir Jallow told allAfrica.com that "the Gambian people have spoken and I have nothing else to add to that. The results speak for themselves."
Independent sources on the ground in Banjul spoke of some interesting trends in this year's polls. Former opposition strongholds such as Jarra East, Jarra West, Jarra Central, Kiang East, Kiang West, Kiang Central and even Lawyer Darboe's home constituency of Upper Fulladu West were won by the president.
Even more surprising was the fact that Wuli, home constituency of PDOIS candidate Sidia Jatta, was won by Jammeh. Following his election as MP for the area in 1997, Mr. Jatta had set up the Wuli Fund into which he posted about 70% of his monthly pay to help develop the area.
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President Jammeh also won the home constituency of NCP candidate Sheriff Dibba.
Conversely, the opposition clinched victory in at least two ruling party strongholds of Tumana and Kantora constituencies.
Sources in Banjul say that even if opposition parties had managed to form an all-party coalition, the count shows that the president would still have emerged victorious.
Some observers say, however, that even if the vote itself was properly conducted, they cannot describe the entire process as free and fair. "Apart from the fact that Jammeh does have some support, his victory is largely a result of some sort of carrot and stick policy," a prominent journalist told allAfrica.com. He estimated that the president had spent up to two million dalasi (over US$122, 000) on his campaign. "The widespread dishing out of money to voters across the country, combined with threats of exclusion from development programmes for opposition areas must have given him the votes," he said.
Whatever the case, an election that was widely projected to be fraught with violence has ended peacefully. Now Gambians are waiting to assess the post-election scenario, after the election monitors have gone.
