{"id":32656,"date":"2017-02-18T08:00:18","date_gmt":"2017-02-18T08:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/the-gambia-crowds-swell-for-president-barrow\/"},"modified":"2017-02-18T07:59:57","modified_gmt":"2017-02-18T07:59:57","slug":"the-gambia-crowds-swell-for-president-barrow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/the-gambia-crowds-swell-for-president-barrow\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gambia: Crowds swell for President Barrow inauguration"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Thousands of people are gathering in The Gambia for the inauguration of the country’s new president, Adama Barrow, after a lengthy power struggle forced him into exile.<\/p>\n

Various African heads of state are expected at the ceremony.}<\/p>\n

Mr Barrow is only the third president in the history of The Gambia.<\/p>\n

He was sworn in last month in a low-key event in neighbouring Senegal before his predecessor agreed to step down.<\/p>\n

Saturday’s much larger scale ceremony is taking place in a stadium near the Gambian capital, Banjul.<\/p>\n

The celebrations also mark 52 years of the west African country’s independence.<\/p>\n

Crowds queued through the night to get a good spot inside the stadium and witness national history.<\/p>\n

Brass bands prepared to play and flags waved.<\/p>\n

Long-time leader Yahya Jammeh was voted out in December but he only agreed to step aside when regional powers sent in troops ready to remove him by force.<\/p>\n

He has since fled to Equatorial Guinea.<\/p>\n

Mr Barrow has promised a new dawn for the country, which Mr Jammeh ruled with an iron fist.<\/p>\n

Many political prisoners have already been freed and The Gambia is set to rejoin international institutions such as the International Criminal Court and the Commonwealth.<\/p>\n

Mr Barrow, a successful property developer who has never held public office, defied the odds by winning the election.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the BBC just before the election, Mr Barrow said that Gambians “had been suffering for 22 years” and were ready for change.<\/p>\n

His predecessor had once told the BBC he would rule for a billion years, if necessary.<\/p>\n

\"Supporters<\/figure>\n

Source:BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Thousands of people are gathering in The Gambia for the inauguration of the country’s new president, Adama Barrow, after a lengthy power struggle forced him into exile. Various African heads of state are expected at the ceremony.} Mr Barrow is only the third president in the history of The Gambia. He was sworn in last […]<\/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-32656","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\/32656","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=32656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32656\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32656"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=32656"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=32656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}