Honorable Demba Ali Jawo, former Minister of Information and communication under President Adama Barrow’s administration, has claimed that non-Gambians voted on December 4 presidential election.
In an opinion piece, he said: “Now that President-elect Adama Barrow has received a strong mandate from Gambians to rule this country for another five years, everyone is anxiously waiting to see how he is going to handle his new mandate. Is he going to continue with the same lackadaisical attitude, with corruption and malfeasance being the hallmark of his last administration, or are we going to see more positive developments, with head-on confrontation against corruption and mismanagement? Regardless of who voted for him and who did not, and the obvious fact that there were some irregularities in the elections, Barrow is still president for all Gambians, and as such, we should all pray for the success of his administration, because it means ultimate success for the Gambia.”
“It is a well-known fact that several non-Gambians who had no business in our elections were mobilized to vote and they indeed voted. However, apparently because of their over-confidence in their poise to win the elections and trying to ward off the label of being anti-foreigner, the United Democratic Party (UDP), in particular, did not see it necessary to take the matter to the revising courts. Therefore, it is now too late in the day for anyone to contemplate challenging such irregularities, thus making all those non-Gambians who were illegally registered acquire Gambian citizenship through the back door. This indeed has some negative implications for this country as some of those people may be criminals and other undesirable elements and giving them our citizenship on a silver platter just for political expediency by a few politicians bent on winning the elections by whatever means necessary, could come to haunt us in the long run,” he said.
“It is unfortunate however that the UDP never had the chance to bring out in open court whatever evidence they claim to have had with regards to election fraud. It was also a disappointment to many UDP supporters that, with all their large reservoir of experienced lawyers, they apparently failed to do their homework before bringing their case to the Supreme Court, only to be thrown out on a technicality. Whatever the case however, we need to move on as a nation and we expect the opposition to work hard towards the National Assembly elections to ensure that this country is not, by default, transformed into a single-party nation, which would spell disaster for our nascent democracy. It would be a big mistake if Gambian voters decide to give the National People’s Party (NPP) absolute control of the legislature, giving the Barrow administration the power to do whatever they want. If that happens, the very first thing they are likely to do would be to bring in a watered-down new constitution that would help him consolidate his control over every aspect of the governance structure which may not be for the general good of the country,’ he explained.