Parties backing Gambian president sweep polls

By Mustapha K Darboe

BANJUL, Gambia (AA) - Four of the seven political parties backing Gambia’s new President Adama Barrow have won 42 out of 53 seats in the country’s parliamentary election held on Thursday, according to the electoral commission.

The election, which attracted a low turnout, was the small West African nation’s first polls since the fall of its strongman Yahya Jammeh on Dec. 1, 2016 presidential election.

Barrow’s party from where he resigned to contest as an independent presidential candidate, the United Democratic Party, has won 31 seats, while other three parties in coalition won a total of 11 seats, giving them 42 seats altogether.

Former President Jammeh’s Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC) party bagged five seats, all in his native region of Foni in the Western Division of Gambia.

The opposition Gambia Democratic Congress party also won five seats, leaving one seat to independent candidate.

The results show a sharp decline in the popularity of the APRC from being the majority in the National Assembly to one of the minorities.

Barrow and his team of coalition leaders have promised host of constitutional and legal reforms and the election victory is expected to be a massive boost to them.

There were nine political parties with a record 239 registered candidates who campaigned for 53 seats in country’s parliamentary elections.

Five seats are to be appointed by the president, totaling 58 spots in the small nation's parliament.

The small country of about 2 million people has 886,000 registered voters, IEC said.

The election was monitored by dozens of observers from the African Union, European Union and officials of the regional economic bloc, ECOWAS.

Gambia has come under spotlight since its rocky political transition in December which triggered regional military intervention in the country following Jammeh’s refusal to cede power.