<span style="color: #222222;">Polls have opened in The Gambia for the first election since former President Yahya Jammeh left office and fled the country in 2017. Six presidential candidates, including the incumbent Adama Barrow, are running. The election is seen as a litmus test for the West African nation's democratic transition. Some nine lakh sixty thousand voters, almost half of the country's population, are eligible to cast ballots.<br />''<br />''Unemployment, economic recovery from the impact of the Covid pandemic, and whether Mr. Jammeh should return from exile have been the central issues in the campaign.</span>