Tag Archives: Study in Gambia

(Republic of the Gambia). West African state (11,295 km²). Capital: Banjul. Administrative division: divisions (8). Population: 1,594,000 (2008 estimate). Language: English (official), Wolof. Religion: Muslims 94.9%, others 5.1%. Monetary unit: dalasi (100 butut). Human Development Index: 0.471 (160th place). Borders: Senegal (N, E and S), Atlantic ocean (W). Member of: ECOWAS, Commonwealth, OCI, UN, AU and WTO, EU associate. According to COUNTRYAAH, Gambia is a nation in Western Africa, the capital city of which is Banjul. The latest population of Gambia is 2,416,679. REMZFAMILY: Lists and descriptions of main religions and beliefs in Gambia, including religion demographics and statistics on Christianity, Islam, Judaism, etc.
HISTORY
In a bloodless coup by the military in July 1994, President Jawara was ousted, the constitution suspended, and political parties and political activities banned. Jawara went into exile and did not return to Gambia until 2003. At the head of the Armed Forces Provisional Ruling Council (AFPRC), Yahya Jammeh was named President on July 26, 1994. Elections were held as early as September 1996 under international pressure. Jammeh, meanwhile resigned from the army, won the election as a candidate of the Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC), was head of state and was confirmed in office in 2001, 2006 and 2011. A civil government was constituted in 1996 as a result of the elections. With the parliamentary elections of January 2, 1997, in which the APRC was victorious (also in the January 2002 elections), and the new constitution that came into force on January 16, 1997, as well as the complete lifting of the ban on political parties on July 22, 2001 the democratization process was formally continued step by step without fundamentally changing the autocratic character of the regime. The opposition remained marginalized and the human rights situation was unsatisfactory. The media and members of the opposition were critical of the government and faced severe repression. Several coup attempts against Jammeh failed. In the parliamentary elections in 2007 and 2012, the APRC won 42 and 43 of the 48 direct-election mandates, respectively. Important opposition parties boycotted the 2012 election. On October 2, 2013, Gambia announced its withdrawal from the Commonwealth of Nations. President Jammeh declared the country an Islamic Republic in December 2015.

The presidential election on December 1, 2016 was surprisingly won by A. Barrow. According to the electoral commission, the UDP politician and candidate of the opposition alliance The Gambia Coalition 2016 received around 43.3% of the vote, while incumbent Jammeh achieved 39.6% of the vote. Jammeh initially recognized Barrow’s victory, but then declared on December 9, 2016 that he would not accept the result due to irregularities in the voting. On January 17, 2017, he declared a state of emergency. The parliament, dominated by Jammeh’s partisans, extended its term of office, which ended on January 19, 2017, by three months. In the meantime, ECOWAS had applied the political pressure Jammeh raised to force him to give up office. A. Barrow was sworn in as the new president on January 19, 2017 in the Gambian embassy in neighboring Senegal. After ECOWAS troops had crossed the border with Gambia, Jammeh finally announced his resignation after negotiations with the presidents of Mauritania and Guinea and went into exile on January 21, 2017. Barrow returned to Gambia on January 26, 2017 (swearing in again on February 18, 2017) and reversed Jammeh’s renaming to the Islamic Republic of the Gambia. On April 6, 2017, for the first time since the beginning of Jammeh’s rulereally free parliamentary elections will be held again. In doing so, UDP became the strongest political force, winning around 37.5% of the votes and 31 out of 53 seats available for election. The ARPC only got 15.9% of the vote and 5 seats. On the initiative of A. Barrows, Gambia has been a member of the Commonwealth of Nations again since February 2018.