Gambia Holds Presidential Election Amid Internet Blackout

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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/01/world/americas/united-nations-apology-haiti-cholera.html

>Gambians have cast ballots for a new president, in what marks the most serious risk yet to the decades-long rule of President Yahya Jammeh.

>The voting happened amid a blackout on Internet and international phone calls, as NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton tells our Newscast unit. She reports the current president of the small West African country "is warning his rivals not to challenge the outcome of the vote." Here's more from Ofeibea:

>"President Yahya Jammeh says only divine intervention can remove him from office. He's told his fellow presidential contenders there's no reason to demonstrate after the results, because Gambia's election system is fraud-proof and can't be rigged. Jammeh says protests are loopholes used to destabilize African governments. He claims he's dragged Gambia from the Stone Age, as he put it, to modernity though Jammeh is accused of repression."

>Jammeh's human rights record is dismal. "Forced disappearances, arbitrary detention, torture, and other human rights violations continue," says Human Rights Watch. "Gambian authorities routinely target voices of dissent, including journalists, human rights defenders, political opponents and critics, as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people."

>He is also known for "claiming to have a herbal cure for AIDS that works only on Thursdays" and proclaiming that he will rule Gambia for "a billion years," as Reuters reports.

>His main challenger is businessman Adama Barrow, who has promised to "bring Gambia back from the brink and restore human rights and true democracy," Ofeibea says.
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