By Mama A. Touray
Peace Ambassadors Gambia has affirmed that its Election Watch Committee is fully prepared to observe the Saturday, presidential election across the country.
Speaking at the press conference held at the Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara International Conference Center, Bijilo on Thursday, Bubacarr Sambou, president of Peace Ambassadors Gambia said “the Election Watch Committee has observed all phases of this electoral process and is now ready to observe the 4th December, 2021 poll”
He added that they Plan to deploy 460 trained and accredited on Election Day to allow the election watch Committee to have a nationwide picture of what happens on Election Day.
Sambou further stated that the election watch Committee was able to rapidly collected, verified, and analysed data on the campaign period by having observers report in real-time by sending reports using coded text messages via their mobile phones. All reports were processed at the election watch committee national information centre using a specifically designed elections database.
However, while duelling on the findings made by the election watch, Mr Sambou confirmed that observers continued to witness and hear of several instances of the abuse of state resources such use of vehicles and vote buying by candidates and political parties. While adding that, those that violated the code of conduct and code on election campaign ethics created an unlevelled playing field and threaten to undermine confidence in our democratic institutions.
“Election watch observers reports indicated that political parties’ campaigns spanned the country and civic voter education activities ramped up during the final stage of campaign” he said.
He concluded that election watch committee reminds all registered voters to bring their voter’s card to their assigned polling station on Saturday, 4th December to exercise their right to cast their vote for president of The Gambia and the committee further called political actors to abide by the Janjanbureh Peace Accord and commitments to participate peacefully in the electoral process.
The election watch committee composed of three organizations, Peace Ambassadors-The Gambia (PAG), ACTIVISTA, and the National Youth Parliament (NYP). Members of the election watch Committee have observed all aspects of the election process including political party congresses, voter registration, the candidate nomination process, and the campaign period.
The elections watch Committee today released its findings on the second half of the campaign period for the 4th December presidential elections. Election Watch Committee’s findings are based on reports received from the 59 campaign observers deployed across all 53 constituencies and are based on their observations from the 18th November to 1st December, 2021.