Gambia’s new vice president will be a female leader of the opposition coalition that helped bring new President Adama Barrow to power, a presidential spokesperson announced on Monday as regional troops continued security sweeps to prepare for Barrow’s return to the country he now rules.
The appointment of Aja Fatoumata Tambajang as vice president was announced at a press conference by coalition spokesperson Halifa Sallah.
He said the rest of Barrow’s cabinet would be revealed on Tuesday.
Barrow remained in Senegal, where he traveled more than a week ago when it was uncertain whether ex-President Yahya Jammeh would acknowledge defeat in the December election and step down.
After days of frantic mediation, and as a regional intervention force deployed to apply pressure, Jammeh finally agreed to leave, flying out late on Saturday night.
Mediators said his destination was Equatorial Guinea, though that notoriously secretive country has yet to confirm Jammeh’s arrival.
Equatorial Guinea’s opposition has denounced the government’s decision to welcome Jammeh.
President Teodoro Obiang will be held responsible “for what might occur” as a result of Jammeh’s presence on the country’s soil, according to a statement emailed Monday by Andres Esono Ondo, secretary general of the opposition Convergence for Social Democracy.
Jammeh should not qualify for political asylum because he triggered Gambia’s crisis by refusing to step down for weeks after he lost the December vote to Adama Barrow, said the Democratic Opposition Front, in a separate statement on Sunday.
“We are not against Pan-Africanism, but we are in favor of a more objective Pan-Africanism that does not consist in just bringing over the waste of Africa,” the group said.
