Yahya Jammeh, the president of Gambia, has been defeated in his bid for re-election, according to results made public on Friday. It is a stunning turn for a nation that has lived for more than two decades under what human rights groups have described as a repressive regime.
Adama Barrow, a real estate company owner, was declared the winner a day after voters cast ballots, in an upset victory that astonished observers.
In a concession speech broadcast on state television on Friday night, Mr. Jammeh, one of Africa’s most eccentric leaders, calmly accepted his loss.
“I told you, Gambians, that I will not question the outcome of the results and will accept it,” he said. “I did not wish to contest or find out why they did not vote for me. I leave that with God.”
After more than 24 hours of an internet and phone blackout, networks lit up Friday morning in the nation, which has a population just under two million, as the news that Mr. Jammeh was trailing in the vote count began to trickle out. On the streets in Gambia, men took off their shirts in celebration, pounding on passing cars. One yelled repeatedly, “Today we are free!”
Mr. Jammeh seized power in a coup in 1994, and he has become known for eccentric behavior that included claiming to be able to cure AIDS with herbs, prayer and a banana. He has been denounced by human rights groups for threatening to behead gay people, ordering so-called sorcerers to be hunted and killed, and arresting and prosecuting journalists and supporters of the opposition.
“It is the birth of a new Gambia where we can together as people raise our fists to the sky and say ‘never again shall we experience dictatorship,’” said Sheriff Bojang Jr., a Gambian journalist who has lived in exile in Dakar, Senegal, for 15 years.
Mr. Barrow, a real estate agent and former security guard at a London department store, is an accidental presidential candidate. He was thrust into the position after members of his party were either arrested or died in prison this year. Supporters describe him as an unassuming businessman.
Yet he managed to do what no other opposition candidate has done in recent elections: bring various groups together to support him. His coalition of opposition groups jelled in the final days of the campaign as enthusiasm swept the streets of Banjul, the capital. People gathered by the hundreds for peaceful protests, crying out for the end to what they said was an oppressive government.
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