Jammeh gets three-month tenure extension

Gambia’s National Assembly Wednesday passed a resolution that gave the incumbent president Yahya Jammeh a three-month tenure extension, Reuters reported quoting Gambian state television.

Jammeh lost to opposition candidate Adama Barrow in the December 2016 presidential election after ruling the West African nation for 22 years. But he later announced that the election results were flawed and unacceptable.

But Barrow, who is currently sheltering in neighbouring Senegal, maintains his inauguration will go ahead on Thursday on Gambian soil, putting the country on a collision course.

On Tuesday, Jammeh declared a state of emergency just two days before he is due to step down, citing “extraordinary” foreign interference in the country’s post-electoral crisis.

The declaration was necessary, he said on state television, after the “unprecedented and extraordinary amount of foreign inference in the December 1 presidential elections and also in the internal affairs of The Gambia.”

The declaration immediately triggered travel advisory warnings by Britain and the Netherlands, with around 1,000 British tourists expected to leave on special flights on Wednesday alone.