REUTERS - Nobel peace laureate
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and other African leaders on Tuesday urged Gambia's long-ruling
President Yahya Jammeh to respect the will of the
people and step down
following his defeat in an election.
Jammeh, who seized
power in a coup in 1994 and has earned a reputation as a repressive leader, has
declined to relinquish power despite initially conceding that he had lost to
opponent Adama Barrow in the election on Dec.1.
He cited
irregularities in the official results and on Tuesday morning security forces
took over the building of the Independent Electoral Commission which holds the
original poll records, its chairman said.
Jammeh's change of
mind drew international criticism, and a delegation of West African leaders
under the auspices of the regional body ECOWAS was in the capital Banjul on
Tuesday on a mission to resolve the crisis.
"We hope that
the will of the people prevails," Johnson Sirleaf, who is Liberia's
president and ECOWAS chairwoman, told reporters on arrival.
Other heads of state
taking part are Nigeria's Muhammadu Buhari, Sierra Leone's Ernest Bai Koroma
and Ghana's John Mahama, who lost an election last week and conceded defeat.
Several of them rode
in Rolls-Royces with Jammeh's name embroidered on the headrests and then
departed for the president's office, a witness said.
"We will be
asking President Jammeh to respect his country's Constitution, and to maintain
the inviolability of the electoral process," Buhari said on Twitter.
Diplomats say that
if Jammeh seeks to cling to power after negotiations fail, neighbors might
consider options for removing him by force.
Marcel de Souza,
president of the ECOWAS commission, told Radio France International on Monday
that sending troops was "a conceivable solution".
The delegation was
also due to meet Barrow, who has said he would annul Jammeh's declaration of
Gambia as an Islamic republic among other reforms, later on Tuesday.
CHALLENGE
Gambia's president
officially has 60 days to hand over power. Jammeh's party intends to challenge
the results at the Supreme Court, potentially offering a legal basis for new
polls.
"That would put
the international community in a strange position and reduce available
options," a diplomat said.
Senegal, which
surrounds the riverine country of 1.8 million people, called Tuesday's trip a
"last chance mission".
However, the African
Union said in a statement on Monday that it also planned to send a high-level
delegation led by Chad's long-ruling President Idriss Deby.
The role of Gambia's
army is seen as key, with the United States saying that some military officers
had sided with Jammeh.
Army chief General
Ousman Badjie had previously called Barrow to pledge his allegiance, the
latter's spokeswoman said, but on Tuesday he told reporters he would support
whomever is head of state.
International human
rights groups have accused Jammeh, a former army lieutenant, of widespread
violations and repression.
He has won four
previous elections that were criticized by rights monitors and survived several
coup attempts, the latest in December 2014.
He declared Gambia
an Islamic Republic last year and in October announced its withdrawal from the
International Criminal Court. He also withdrew Gambia from the Commonwealth in
2013, saying it was a neo-colonial institution.
REUTERS
0 Comments