“For people who were tortured, raped or had loved ones killed under Yahya Jammeh, it’s painful to see him trying to play king-maker instead of answering atrocity charges before a court of law,” said Reed Brody from the non-profit International Commission of Jurists, who has worked with Jammeh’s victims. In one recent speech he promised to return home, an unthinkable prospect for some Gambians. Jammeh did not respond to requests for comment. But unemployment in the country of 2.5 million people forces the young to attempt perilous migration routes to Europe by boat or through the Sahara Desert. Thousands of Europeans flocked to its white sand beaches each year prior to the pandemic. That is not a straight-forward task after COVID-19 crippled tourism under Barrow and shrank the tiny economy in 2020. It has also put pressure on Barrow to convince voters that he has dragged the country out of its difficult past.
The move has split Jammeh’s APRC party, some members of which have formed an alliance with Barrow’s NPP. In a string of speeches by telephone, he has urged crowds of rapt listeners not to vote for Barrow and has persuaded supporters to join a coalition run by opposition candidate Mama Kandeh, who came third in 2016 and who Jammeh has described as his “slave”.
Last week, Gambia’s Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) said between 240 and 250 people died at the hands of the state under Jammeh, and recommended that those responsible be prosecuted. He fled to Equatorial Guinea in 2017 after refusing to accept defeat to Barrow, ending a tenure marked by killing, torture, financial plunder and false claims of a homemade cure for AIDS. Gambians go to the polls on Saturday and for the first time in 27 years Jammeh, who took power in a 1994 coup, will not be on the ballot. “(President) Adama Barrow destroyed everything good I left for Gambians to benefit from – the hospitals, agriculture and education,” Jammeh said to enthusiastic applause.