By Sainabou Sambou
Local election observers and monitors of The Gambia presidential election held on Saturday have said the election process was “free and fair”.
Elections Watch Committee, comprised Peace Ambassador, ACTIVISTA and National Youth Parliament which monitors the 2021 electoral process from voter registration, nomination process, campaigns, to casting and counting of votes across the 53 constituencies within the seven regions of The Gambia.
Speaking at Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara International Conference Center, Kololi, Omar Danso national coordinator of ACTIVISTA said based on the reports from the Elections Watch Observers deployed to polling streams in all 53 constituencies, Gambians turned out in visibly large numbers to select who will lead the country for the next five years.
He said some voters stood in long line into the night to cast their ballot tokens in a peaceful and orderly manner. He said EWC observers reported that the IEC pooling officials generally followed procedures during the voting, closing, and counting process.
“EWC observers noted in some polling streams, a small number of voter’s names were missing from the voter’s list while in others, voter’s faced challenges in identifying their correct polling stream “he said.
He said party agents were present in all of the polling streams observed by the EWC, and didn’t object to the count in nearly all observed locations.
He said the polling stations with more than 800 registered voters areas divided into multiple polling streams where voters queued to vote.
He said 9% of election watch observer reported that voters had trouble identifying the correct polling stream.
“In one instance, Busumbala, voters didn’t realize that they were in the incorrect polling stream until after 5:00pm, at which time they were not allowed to join the queue at the correct stream.
According to him, during voting, closing and counting process, the election watch observers noted a number of incidents that occurred at their assigned stream. He said no incidents were serious or severely disrupted the election process.
Bubacarr Sambou President of Peace Ambassador said based on its observers to the IEC’s election house to observe the collation process, observers were denied access and party agents were, however, able to observe the process.
He said they utilized the prescribed legal process to pursue any complaints or grievances.” More clearly identify the surname included at each polling streams, this helps avoid voters being denied the opportunity to vote because they queued at a wrong polling stream.
He added that clarify and communicate collation procedures and locations in a timelier manner to ensure observers are able to fulfil their role in observing the process, in addition, grant access to accredited observers to observe the national collection process.