Gambia’s election campaign wrapped up on Tuesday with rival presidential candidates staging rallies in the tiny capital Banjul ahead of the poll tipped to hand incumbent Yahya Jammeh a fourth term.
The smallest state on the African mainland, Gambia is a playground for European tourists drawn to its long, palm-fringed beaches which are often pilloried for its dark underbelly of human rights abuses.
Jammeh’s detractors say he rules through fear and repression, accusing his regime of enforced disappearances, extra-judicial killings, torture and muzzling the press since he took power in a bloodless coup in 1994.
His supporters praise him for strong economic growth, development and the building of schools, roads and hospitals.
At a rally wrapping up the end of a shortened 11-day campaign ahead of elections Thursday, some 2 000 people gathered for a well-scripted gathering mostly made up of military officers, their wives and groups of schoolchildren.
Adoring supporters
“If re-elected for another five years, which I am 100% sure of, I will make sure that my government unveils new projects for Gambians every three months,” said Jammeh.
Dressed in his typical garb of billowing white robes, clutching prayer beads and a sceptre, Jammeh greeted the crowd of orderly and adoring supporters, all perfectly decked out in party colours.
Prompted by military officials, the crowd would surge forward, cheer wildly and then quickly retreat to seated positions in the blazing heat while free cold drinks were handed out.
International journalists were handed party t-shirts and instructed to put them on by soldiers.
Gambian politics professor Abdoulaye Saine, based at Miami University, said Jammeh’s victory was, as the leader himself suggests, a foregone conclusion as he “has the money to buy each vote a dozen times over”.
‘Intimidation factor’
“Add to that the intimidation factor of the population by the security forces and threats that he would isolate regions that do not vote for him,” said Saine.
“Fear grips the nation. There are secret agents everywhere and there is a “culture of silence”, for fear that anyone who speaks out, will be carted off to jail, tortured and released just in time to die.”
Jammeh hands out gifts of rice, sugar and farming implements regularly to his followers and has said the election is a choice between development and retrogression.
“We will not only vote for him in 2011, we are ready to die for him,” read posters which officials handed out to the supporters.
This phrase is also printed some of the scores of giant billboards picturing Jammeh which line the country’s main roads. No opposition posters can be seen.
‘We want changes’
However thousands of supporters of veteran opposition candidate Ousainou Darboe turned out for his final rally in the late afternoon.
The 63-year old lawyer is taking his fourth shot at the presidency and while he commands considerable support, few believe he has a chance at unseating the incumbent, who has said only God can remove him from power.
“We want changes,” chanted angry youths, some shouting “Jammeh is a dictator”.
Gambia is a snake-shaped sliver of land which runs west-east from its long, sandy coastline, surrounded on three sides by Senegal, with a population of 1.7 million, 800 000 of whom have registered to vote.
Due to high levels of illiteracy, voting is through a unique system using glass marbles instead of ballot papers which are placed into one of three drums each coloured to represent one of the candidates.
The marbles fall into each drum, hitting a bell which sounds loudly, preventing multiple voting. — AFP