Photo: SEYLLOU / AFP

BANJUL, Gambia - The Gambia's longtime opposition UDP won an absolute majority in parliamentary elections, easily defeating the party of ousted leader Yahya Jammeh, results announced Friday showed. Five extra places are to be appointed by President Adama Barrow to give a total of 58 seats in the legislative chamber, which was long derided as a rubberstamp for Jammeh's executive orders. Those parties had united to form a coalition to oust Jammeh from power, but internal tensions meant they did not run together in the legislative elections, and Barrow's promised overhaul of every aspect of the Gambian state will depend on their willingness to cooperate in parliament and in the cabinet. REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK: Change is coming fast in The Gambia - and it's intoxicating

The landscape of Gambian politics has shifted dramatically since the last legislative elections in 2012, when Jammeh's Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC) took 43 seats, with a large number of them uncontested because of an opposition boycott.
Voters in the Gambia go to the polls for an election, the country's first legislative election since longtime President Yahya Jammeh resigned and left the country.