The former president of the West African nation of Gambia responded on Monday to rape allegations against him by a former beauty queen, with a statement from his party saying the accusations are part of a smear campaign “aimed at tarnishing the good reputation of Gambia’s legendary and visionary leader.”

Yahya Jammeh, the president who led a brutal regime in Gambia for 22 years, was accused by Fatou Jallow, whom he crowned as beauty queen, of raping her five years ago after she turned down his marriage proposal. She was 18 at the time.

The president’s party, the Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction, said in a statement emailed to The New York Times that, “The APRC, as a Party, and the Gambian people are tired of the steady stream of unfounded allegations that have been reported against our ex-President.”

The statement from the president’s party, by the deputy party leader, Ousman Rambo Jatta, came in response to an article in The New York Times last week in which Ms. Jallow came forward publicly for the first time to accuse the president of rape. The statement said that Ms. Jallow’s account contained “no iota of truth,” and claimed that the accusations were orchestrated by Western corporations. It noted that Mr. Jammeh is still the party’s leader.