The Gambian authorities on Friday issued a draft new constitution, which limits to two the number of presidential terms, nearly three years after the departure of dictator Yahya Jammeh.
The text was released to the press by the Revision Committee, set up in July 2018 by Gambian President Adama Barrow for a period of 18 months.
It must replace the Constitution in force since 1997, under President Jammeh, officer who arrived at the head of the Gambia by a coup in 1994 and who led until 2017 a regime of fierce repression.
Presidential terms of five years will be limited to two, according to the document consulted by AFP. The right to information, which does not endanger the security of the state, is enshrined in this new text.
The Review Board, headed by Supreme Court Justice Cherno Sulayman Jallow, is to conduct a national consultation to gather views on the project.
The document resulting from this consultation must then be submitted to President Barrow, then to the National Assembly, before a popular referendum whose date must be fixed by the government, according to the Gambian authorities.
President Barrow, who took office in January 2017 for five years, initially announced that he would only serve a three-year term until January 2020. He then declared that he would go to the end of his term. quinquennate, in January 2021, against the opinion of camp officials who supported him for his accession to power against Yahya Jammeh.
Reached power by a bloodless coup in 1994, Mr. Jammeh was largely elected and re-elected without interruption until his defeat in December 2016 against the opponent Adama Barrow.
After six weeks of a rebound crisis caused by his refusal to give up power, he finally had to leave the country following the military intervention of ECOWAS and a final Guinean-Mauritanian mediation.
Human rights defenders accused the Jammeh regime of systematic acts of torture against opponents and journalists, extrajudicial executions, arbitrary detentions and enforced disappearances.
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