Vote tests Gambian leader who said only Allah can remove him


  • World
  • Friday, 02 Dec 2016

Gambian President Yahya Jammeh holds a copy of the Quran while speaking to a poll worker at a polling station during the presidential election in Banjul, Gambia, December 1, 2016. REUTERS/Thierry Gouegnon

BANJUL (Reuters) - Gambians voted on Thursday in the first serious electoral challenge to President Yahya Jammeh, who has said only Allah can remove him from office and once claimed he would rule the tiny riverside West African nation for "a billion years".

Jammeh, who seized power in a 1994 coup, has made headlines by claiming to have a herbal cure for AIDS that only works on Thursdays, declaring Gambia an Islamic republic and threatening to slit the throats of practicing homosexuals.

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