{"id":30761,"date":"2016-12-02T04:19:37","date_gmt":"2016-12-02T04:19:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/gambia-election-internet-and-international-calls\/"},"modified":"2016-12-02T04:17:14","modified_gmt":"2016-12-02T04:17:14","slug":"gambia-election-internet-and-international-calls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/gambia-election-internet-and-international-calls\/","title":{"rendered":"Gambia election: Internet and international calls banned"},"content":{"rendered":"

{The Gambia has banned the internet and international phone calls as presidential elections are held in the West African state.}<\/p>\n

Officials have also banned demonstrations to prevent unrest after the elections.<\/p>\n

Estate agent Adama Barrow is challenging President Yahya Jammeh, who says divine intervention will give him a fifth term.<\/p>\n

The Gambia has not had a smooth transfer of power since independence.<\/p>\n

The BBC’s Umaru Fofana in the capital, Banjul, says turnout in the election appears to be very high.<\/p>\n

Our correspondent went to a polling station outside Banjul, where he witnessed long queues of voters waiting to cast their votes.<\/p>\n

The results of the election are said to be expected later tonight.<\/p>\n

The Gambia has a unique way of voting for the president.<\/p>\n

Instead of using ballot papers, voters put a marble into a coloured drum for their candidate.<\/p>\n

The system is aimed at tackling illiteracy and preventing rigging.<\/p>\n

In the 2011 election, only two votes were declared invalid after people placed their marbles on top of drums.<\/p>\n

Observers say Mr Barrow, who, according to British news reports, was once a security guard in the UK high street store Argos, has generated fresh enthusiasm among opposition supporters.<\/p>\n

Human rights groups accuse Mr Jammeh, who has in the past claimed he can cure Aids and infertility, of repression and abuses.<\/p>\n

Several previously better-known opposition leaders are in jail after taking part in a rare protest in April.<\/p>\n

Observers from the European Union (EU) and the West African regional bloc Ecowas are not attending the vote.<\/p>\n

This poll in The Gambia is different.<\/p>\n

An unprecedented number of people turned up at opposition rallies ahead of the election.<\/p>\n

For a country that has known only two presidents since independence from the UK 51 years ago, its mostly young population is yearning for change.<\/p>\n

The economic challenges besetting this small West African nation have forced many to make the perilous journey to Europe, with some drowning on the way.<\/p>\n

President Jammeh has said he will rule for a billion years if Allah wills.<\/p>\n

Mr Barrow says he wants to bring the country back from the brink and restore human rights and true democracy.<\/p>\n

Mr Jammeh’s supporters say he has spread education and health care to remote parts of the country.<\/p>\n

However, his critics accuse him of repressive tendencies with many dissenting voices either killed, jailed or forced into exile.<\/p>\n

Gambian officials opposed the presence of Western observers, but the EU says it is staying away out of concern about the fairness of the voting process.<\/p>\n

The African Union, however, has despatched a handful of observers to supervise the vote.<\/p>\n

The Gambia, a tiny country with a population of less than two million, is surrounded on three sides by Senegal and has a short Atlantic coastline, which is popular with European tourists.<\/p>\n

Mr Jammeh took power in a 1994 coup.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the vote, rights groups expressed concern over a possible flare-up of violence.<\/p>\n

However, campaigning passed off almost smoothly without a major incident.
\nOn Tuesday Mr Jammeh warned his rivals against contesting the outcome of the vote.<\/p>\n

“Our election system is fraud-proof, rig-proof, you cannot rig our elections,” he said.
\n“There is no reason that anybody should demonstrate. [Demonstrations] are the loopholes that are used to destabilise African governments.”<\/p>\n

Mamma Kandeh of the Gambia Democratic Congress is also in the race.<\/p>\n

\"Long<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{The Gambia has banned the internet and international phone calls as presidential elections are held in the West African state.} Officials have also banned demonstrations to prevent unrest after the elections. Estate agent Adama Barrow is challenging President Yahya Jammeh, who says divine intervention will give him a fifth term. The Gambia has not had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-30761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30761\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30761"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=30761"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=30761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}