By Binta Jaiteh
The CSO Coalition The Gambia has urged every Gambian citizen to remain committed to a peaceful and effective voter registration process.
According to Lamin Jahateh, representing the chairperson, said since the start of the registration exercise, they have observed the opening and closing in urban and rural registration centers.
So far, the registration exercise is taking place generally peaceful and calm environment without no incident of violence and restriction of political parties’ agents at registration centers.
Mr Jahateh explained that majority of the registration centers they visited opened on time, except for the first day where most centers opened about half an hour late due to delay in setting up the registration centers. He added that the voter registration exercise was also delayed in the first two days by technical issues, notably the difficulty in printing of voter’s card. In some registration centers other equipment such as generator was temporarily faulty.
“On June 2, that is 5 days after the start of registration, the exercise stopped in Somita, Foni Bintang constituency inWest Coast Region as the printer could not function well it had to be transported to Brikama for replacement,” he said.
He noted that, the number of registration of registrants were seen turned away and in some registration centres visited due to various reasons including being in possession of conflicting documents, expired ID cards, and photocopied Alkalo attestations.
He stated that, the majority of registration centres visited had a number of party of agents, UDP, GDC, APRC, PDOIS, NPP, and were given access to observe which demonstrates transparency, however, the coalition observed that party gents are not sufficiently oriented and well equipped. The coalition has made some recommendation to the different stakeholders, like the government of The Gambia to continue providing and enabling environment for the conduct of the exercise, and ensuring the local government structures and officials not to interfere or undermine but rather facilitate the process.
The CCE programs calls on the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) to act within the current Gambian Constitutional framework and address the ongoing issue of attestation process to allow other registered voters, and other notable citizen such as high court judges, or religious leaders to also attest for prospective applicants.
However, political parties have both a unique role and a definite interest in the conduct of a clean voter registration exercise and the IEC should be proactive in addressing issues that are emerging in the voter registration process promptly, the media should also play active role in the electoral process by ensuring equitable and fair coverage of all regions of the country
Salama Njie, Coordinator CSO coalition, highlighted that, The Gambia on the ongoing general voter registration exercise ahead of the December 21 Presidential elections. The CSO coalition is a consortium of different civil society organization spear headed and coordinated by WANEP The Gambia.
Njie further said, it is a home-grown national platform established in 2006 to facilitate an enhance CSO partners participation in elections for democracy and good governance with the membership of over 30 civil society organization and we continue to participate and influence public policy through election monitoring and conflicts.
