This past Thursday, the political dilemma in Gambia has rapidly escalated, following Adama Barrow being sworn into office. The previous leader, Yahya Jammeh, claims he is still the President and will “fight back” to retain his position. As a result of Mr. Jammeh’s failure to step down, Senegalese military have invaded the capital of Gambia (Banjul) and insist on his departure.
Previously, Mr. Jammeh had been the leader of the country for over 20 years, yet suddenly his country has decided to vote him out. This is likely due to the arrival of millennials into the voting population. Gambia has seen a massive population rise over their past few elections and, with the mean age of their population being 20.7 years, millenials would therefore have a massive impact on the result of the vote.
This younger population (AKA millennials) is classified to have very high expectations, regarding their standard of living and, with Mr. Jammeh’s “dictatorship” approach, it is evident as to why he was voted out. Mr. Barrow, who was recently sworn into office, has continuously advertised the saying “We are one Gambia, one people” to portray the democratic approach he wished to enforce upon the country. Evidently, this was a significant reason as to why he was voted in.
Overall, Mr. Barrows leadership stance correlated more with the millennials political views, rather than Mr. Jammeh’s views, which correlated with very few citizens. Dilemmas similar to this portray how globalization is impacting the role of leaders and how their leverage is becoming less influential each day. Standards continue to rise with globalization, as newer populations continuously grow “picky”.
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Sources:
Searcey, Dionne, and Jaime Barry. Www.nytimes.com. The New York Times, 19 Jan. 2017. Web. 21 Jan. 2017.
“PopulationPyramid.net.” PopulationPyramid.net. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Jan. 2017.