BANJUL, Gambia—Gambians tore down posters of longtime President Yahya Jammeh and celebrated in the streets as the military stood by Friday after election officials said the ruler of more than two decades would concede defeat in a startling turn of events for a country where the critics have long alleged votes are rigged and opponents jailed.
Jammeh was expected to address the nation Friday evening, although already his fate appeared all but sealed by the unprecedented crowds publicly cheering his ouster. A group of men packed in a pickup truck screamed “Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!”
Just days earlier Jammeh had declared that no demonstrations of any kind would be permitted regardless of the vote’s outcome.
For the tens of thousands watching abroad from political exile, it was a day they thought might never come.
“We have freedom at last! And there will be an economic boom, and people jailed can be freed, and people exiled abroad will come back home to their families,” said Aminata Jawara, a 23-year-old lab technician.
Jammeh finished with just 36 percent of the vote compared to the winner Adama Barrow with 45 percent. Another opposition candidate who was not in the eight-party coalition finished with 17 percent, according to the national election commission.
