{"id":30985,"date":"2016-12-10T23:49:51","date_gmt":"2016-12-10T23:49:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/gambia-president-yahya-jammeh-must-step-down-un\/"},"modified":"2016-12-10T23:49:47","modified_gmt":"2016-12-10T23:49:47","slug":"gambia-president-yahya-jammeh-must-step-down-un","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/gambia-president-yahya-jammeh-must-step-down-un\/","title":{"rendered":"Gambia President Yahya Jammeh must step down – UN"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Gambian President Yahya Jammeh must hand over power after defeat in elections, the UN Security Council has said.}<\/p>\n

President Jammeh initially conceded to Adama Barrow in last week’s vote but has since refused to accept the end of his 22-year rule.<\/p>\n

Mr Barrow said he was sure the military supported him as the country’s new leader.
\nThe UN added that a handover should come without condition or delay.<\/p>\n

President Jammeh first seemed to accept the loss but then backtracked and said, on Friday, that he “totally” rejected the result.<\/p>\n

In a unanimous statement, the UN’s 15 council members called on him to “respect the choice of the sovereign people of The Gambia”.<\/p>\n

The president’s U-turn was condemned by The African Union (AU), who described his statement as “null and void”.<\/p>\n

His reluctance to step down has also been criticised by the US and neighbouring Senegal.<\/p>\n

A heavy military presence has been reported in the Gambian capital, Banju, but the streets have remained calm.<\/p>\n

The BBC’s West Africa correspondent, Thomas Fessy, says the main question now is whether President Jammeh has managed to split the army, retaining a faction ready to back his announcement.<\/p>\n

According to the electoral commission, as a result of the vote on 1 December:<\/p>\n

Mr Barrow won 222,708 votes (43.34%)<\/p>\n

President Jammeh took 208,487 (39.6%)<\/p>\n

A third-party candidate, Mama Kandeh, won 89,768 (17.1%)<\/p>\n

Mr Barrow, a property developer, is due to take office in late January.<\/p>\n

The Gambia is the smallest country on mainland Africa, with a population of fewer than two million.<\/p>\n

In his 22 years in power, Mr Jammeh acquired a reputation as a ruthless leader.<\/p>\n

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

{Gambian President Yahya Jammeh must hand over power after defeat in elections, the UN Security Council has said.} President Jammeh initially conceded to Adama Barrow in last week’s vote but has since refused to accept the end of his 22-year rule. Mr Barrow said he was sure the military supported him as the country’s new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-30985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","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\/30985","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=30985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30985\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30985"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=30985"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=30985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}