By Sainabou Sambou
Peace Ambassador has announced the deployment of 59 election observers who will help to observe the December 4 presidential election.
Speaking during a media briefing at its headquarters in Kanifing, Bubacarr Sambou, President of Peace Ambassadors – The Gambia said: “PAG has trained and will on Tuesday,9th November, deploy 59 long-time observers which include 6 regional coordinators and 53 constituency observers to observe the election process in all regions and constituencies.”.
“All 59 observers will observe and send campaign observation checklist report on two designated days (one in the middle and one at the end of the period) as well in critical incidents report throughout the process anytime they occur. PAG observers will observe and report on campaign process such as political rallies, campaign marches and demonstrations, debates, the use of the media, flyers, posters, billboards or community outreach events,” he added.
According to him, they will also watch out for campaign violence within their assigned areas such as propagation of hate speeches and divisive messages, intimidation and harassment targeted at electoral actors and other groups.
He said that observers will further report on civic and voters’ education activities, awareness of adherence to Covid -19 health and safety measures as well as the IEC preparatory activities for the Election Day at the regional and constituency level.
Meanwhile, “PAG also trained five data clerks that will be stationed at the PAG National Information Center Kanifing to collect checklist reports from constituency observers on the two designated reporting days as well as critical incidents from all observers all through the campaign process,” he added.
He said the pre-election period (Candidate Nomination and Campaign), PAG will issue three public updates to communicate its observation findings.
“These updates will be in form of a report or brief that will either post on a social platform or shared directly into emails to various stakeholders to communicate PAG’s findings. The PAG deployed an observer to observe the IEC candidate nomination process and public scrutiny for total of eight days (30th October -6 November) at the IEC headquarters in Kanifing,” he disclosed.
He said the PAG observer was permitted by the IEC to observe the submission of the nomination papers submitted by aspirants.