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Gambia's Jammeh in shock election loss after 22-year rule
- finid 10y agoDefeat and a concession from Jammeh would be momentous. Yep, that would be huge and unprecedented.
- ceejayoz 10y ago> Jammeh's eccentricities often made headlines. He once said he had invented a herbal cure for AIDS that only works on a Thursdays. Once every year he also invited a few hundred women to the grounds of State House, where he personally administered a another herbal cure he had concocted for infertility. Yeah, that sounds like someone who's gonna peacefully accept election results.
- hood_syntax 10y agoAccording to the BBC article he has conceded. It may have been hearsay, I don't recall at the moment
- tyingq 10y agoMore gems: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/y/yahya_jammeh.html https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/y/yahya_jammeh.ht...
- John23832 10y agoSome of those things are pretty true imo (and liberal leaning... the situation in Israel/Palestine being one) and other seem like the ramblings of a conservative mad man.
- randomafrican 10y agoThat's why everybody uses the word "shock" He has not publicly conceded yet (so we may still get a surprise) but : - his electoral commission has announced the results - the head of his electoral commission has announced Jammeh will conceide - rumour says his concession video has been recorded - the internet that has been cut-off on election's eve is functionning again - soldiers who were deployed have left the streets It really sound this is happening
- cdubzzz 10y ago> - soldiers who were deployed have left the streets Is it known whether or not the soldiers in this case are loyal to Jammeh? Just thinking about what happened in Burkina with Compaoré.
- hackermailman 10y agoJammeh's official title is also 'His Excellency Sheikh Professor Alhaji Dr. Yahya Abdul-Aziz Awal Jemus Junkung Jammeh Naasiru Deen Babili Mansa" though he's been dropping some titles lately, perhaps he is becoming more sane with age maybe he will concede.
- Pica_soO 10y agoI take offense in you correctly pronouncing that name. Such length is concatenated with the purpose of flinging missrey on those who have to speak them. Behave accordingly.
- lb1lf 10y agoThe Norwegian Broadcasting Service just announced that he had conceded defeat to the head of the electoral commission. However, they stressed that Jammeh had not yet publicly conceded.
- davidmr 10y agoApropos of nothing, the proper anglicized name of the country is The Gambia, which along with The Bahamas, are the only two countries whose official names include "The". Obviously Reuters knows what they're doing and I'm sure adhere quite strictly to their popular style guide, so I find it interesting that their editors omit the "The". I wonder why.
- mc32 10y agoAnd we had The Ukraine before it dropped the article, for whatever reason. I like the slightly jarring "The" in front of those countries' names. Gives them a little something extra, grammatically.
- thomasfoster96 10y agoThere's a Wikipedia article devoted to Ukraine's name: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_Ukraine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_of_Ukraine In short, Ukrainian has no definite article, unlike English. Ukraine officially dropped 'the' from the English translation of the country's name after independence. Some Ukrainians find the use of 'the' somewhat insulting as it is the Soviet-era translation and disregards the Ukrainian government translation.
- tyingq 10y agoI can't tell what they mean here, but: http://handbook.reuters.com/index.php?title=G#Gambia http://handbook.reuters.com/index.php?title=G#Gambia "Gambia: Not the Gambia, West Africa"
- cdubzzz 10y agoSounds like they are specifically not calling it the T/the Gambia, for whatever reason.
- Someone 10y agoI'm not sure it is official, but http://www.un.org/en/member-states/ http://www.un.org/en/member-states/ disagrees. The only country name starting with "The" on that list is "The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia". It lists Gambia as "Gambia (Islamic Republic of the)" so, according to tHat list, at best, it is "Islamic Republic of the Gambia" (no capital T on 'the')
- pavlov 10y agoGambia largely lives on tourism. Any political instability could have disastrous effects on the economy. Maybe Jammeh realizes that and will concede peacefully.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- randomafrican 10y agoThen again, The Gambia is special. They have held multiparty free and open elections from independance until 1994 (Jammeh's coup). This a continent where most countries had experienced Coups, Single-Party rule or both by 1970. (The only country with continuous multiparty democracy is Botswana) Jammeh himself quickly felt the need to organise elections to legitimize his rule. Sure there was intimidation and other manoeuvers but oddly he almost always won with results in the high 50's. Those are crazy tight results by African standards (even in democracies incumbents rarely go lower than 60).
- bglazer 10y agoGambia was recently the subject of an attempted coup by a group of Gambian-American immigrants. It's a really fascinating story. A group of middle-aged middle-class immigrants from Gambia plotted, and attempted to overthrow Jammeh. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/21/how-former-us-army-officer-launched-disastrous-coup-the-gambia https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/21/how-former-us-...