Gambia to get female presidential candidate

First woman presidential candidate in Gambia Dr Isatou Touray speaks at a past event. PHOTO | agencies

What you need to know:

Dr Touray is currently executive director of leading women’s group the Gambia Committee against Harmful Traditional Practices, which campaigns to stop female genital mutilation

Banjul. A women’s rights activist in the Gambia currently campaigning against female genital mutilation has said she will put herself forward as the country’s first-ever female presidential candidate.

“It is true that I want to contest the presidency” in December’s election, Isatou Touray told AFP ahead of an official announcement expected later Friday.

She said she would stand as an independent candidate in the polls, expected to hand incumbent Yahya Jammeh a fifth term at the helm of the poor west African nation.

Now in her sixties, Touray has had a colourful career, winning a US State Department award for empowering Gambian communities in 2008 but arrested in 2010 over corruption allegations when she was deputy director of the Gambia’s development institute. She was acquitted of all charges. Ms Touray is currently executive director of leading women’s group the Gambia Committee against Harmful Traditional Practices, which fights to stop female genital mutilation.

Meanwhile on Thursday, the United Democratic Party (UDP) -- the country’s principal opposition movement -- named relatively unknown businessman Adama Barrow as its candidate.

Several of the party’s leading figures are currently serving jail time for holding public protests, catapulting the UDP acting treasurer into the spotlight. (AFP)