Gambia’s new president, still in Senegal, names female VP

BANJUL, Gambia (AP) — 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 spokesman announced 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 spokesman Halifa Sallah. He said the rest of Barrow’s cabinet would be revealed Tuesday.

A former U.N. Development Program staffer, Tambajang was instrumental in helping Gambia’s opposition parties overcome their differences and unite against ousted President Yahya Jammeh, who came to power in a coup and ruled for 22 years.

Barrow remained in Senegal Monday, where he traveled more than a week ago when it was uncertain whether 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 Saturday night. Mediators said his destination was Equatorial Guinea, though that notoriously secretive country has yet to confirm Jammeh’s arrival.

Barrow’s return date has not been fixed. The armed forces have pledged loyalty to him, though regional forces on Monday continued to push Gambian soldiers out of the official residence, State House, in Banjul in advance of Barrow’s arrival.

Meanwhile, Equatorial Guinea’s opposition 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 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.

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Associated Press writer Robbie Corey-Boulet contributed from Abidjan, Ivory Coast.