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GAMBIA: Murky voter registration mars election run-up
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GAMBIA: Murky voter registration mars election run-up
BANJUL, 12 September (IRIN) - Apainyassi is Senegalese. Yet, he says he
plans to cast a vote in The Gambia's presidential elections later this
month – in fact, he's already been issued with a voter card.Apainyassi, who
doesn't want to give his full name, says he feels a greater affinity
for his adoptive home and sees no reason why he shouldn't vote in the
election."This is where I work, and this is where I live now,"
he said, pointing at the tiny village of Janackquel, one kilometre
within Gambian territory, but just over the border with Senegal's
restive southern Casamance region.
Across The Gambia, campaign
stickers and posters encourage voters to choose the incumbent President
Yahya Jammeh of the ruling Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and
Construction (APRC) in polls set for the 22 September. Their campaign
slogan: "operation no compromise".Opposition
candidates say that the APRC are so determined to ensure their man will
win, that they are sending "mobilisers" to southern Gambia to register
non-nationals like Apainyassi because they will vote for President
Jammeh based on ethnic allegiances.Jammeh won the last election
in 2001 with a slim majority, meaning additional names could make a big impact.Apainyassi openly agrees that he will put his mark against President Jammeh, because he is a member of the same
minority Diola group.Alhagie
Mustapha Carayol, Chairman of The Gambia's Independent Electoral
Commission (IEC), told IRIN that over 94,000 new voters have registered
to cast a vote in this year's presidential election.DENIALSam Sarr, a representative
of the New Alliance for Democracy and Development (NADD) party, has
accused President Jammeh party of handing out voter cards to members of
his own ethnic group Diola group, even if they are not Gambian
nationals. Ousainu Darboe, leader of the United Democratic Party (UDP), the main opposition party has previously echoed these
complaints in interviews with IRIN.They say that Jammeh needs to bring in support from outside because the Diola are a minority in Mandinka-dominated Gambia.The
ruling party APSC spokesman Yankuba Touray, who is also Secretary of
State for Agriculture, declined to speak to IRIN about the opposition's
accusations. He has previously told IRIN he was not aware of any
impropriety over the issuing of voter cards.But Moussa Diatta, a Senegalese national from
Casamance, and a member of the Diola ethnic group who IRIN met in The
Gambia's second largest city Serakunda, confirmed he was recruited by a
pro-Jammeh group working in Casamance."There are
supporting committees that work in many villages in Casamance for the
re-election of Jammeh. The members of the committee come to the village
on the eve of the elections by bus. Then after they have voted, they
are taken back to their villages," he said.Diatta said he received Gambian identity cards for himself and his family that lets
them vote and live legally in The Gambia.At Oulampane, another village in northern Casamance that IRIN visited, photos ofThe Gambia's president and APSC campaign posters are plastered on every
available space on the crumbling walls.The
village chief Gnantouma Bodian explained that villagers there have
become so intertwined with The Gambia that most consider themselves
Gambian in all but nationality."All the children in the zone were born in Gambian
health facilities. Their mothers could not find suitable facilities
here in Casamance so they went to The Gambia for the birth. Afterwards,
the children were certified there," he said.Although many of Oulampane's children live in their village on the Senegalese side, many attend school on the Gambian side of the border.NO CHALLENGECarayol
at the Gambian Electoral Commission denies that there has been any
impropriety in the way the voting lists were drawn up. "None of the
opposition parties has ever made a formal challenge to the lists, so
there cannot be any problem," he said.However, representatives from the two main opposition parties NADD and UPCcontacted by IRIN said making a complaint is impossibly complicated and
expensive. They said each illegal voter must first be identified and
then recorded with the IEC, which costs 25 dalasis (90 cents) per name.Sarr
at the NADD party said, "it would run to tens of thousands of dalasis
with the number of people we believe were illegally registered, and we
could not possibly afford it."The violator must then be served with a summons, which
opposition parties say has in the past proved impossible even in Banjul, where there are some street names. Many villages in Casamance and The Gambia do not even appear on maps, and are divided into
undistinguishable compounds housing up to eight families at once.Vitalie
Muntean, the UN's Deputy Resident Representative in The Gambia said the
confusion could be avoided if in future a continuous registration
process was used as in most other democracies. "If it is not a process that just happens once every five years, that makes things much more transparent, and also does not add too much
work to the IEC," Muntean said. "The system here in The Gambia needs to be looked into and things done to improve it." |
Posted on Tuesday, September 12, 2006 (Archive on Thursday, September 28, 2006)
Posted by PNMBAI Contributed by PNMBAI
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