By: Nyima Sillah
The Election Watch Committee (EWC) in partnership with Peace Ambassador the Gambia ACTIVISTA and National Youth parliament on Monday, 7 March, 2021 informed the media that they have trained and deployed 71 long term observers to observe the parliamentary elections.
Speaking during the media briefing at the headquarters, The Deputy Speaker National Youth Parliament, Ndegen Jobe, said: “For the pre-election period, the EWC has trained and deployed a total of 71 long term observers including 14 nomination observers, 7 regional coordinator and 53 constituency observers to observe the nomination process, pre-campaign and campaign in all constituencies.”
“All 14 nomination observers will observe and send nomination checklist reports and list of accepted and rejected nominees at the end of each observation day. As well, 53 constituency observers will observe and send campaign observation checklist report on three designated days as well as send in critical incidents report throughout the process, anytime the occur. EWC observers will observe and report campaign processes such as political rallies, campaign marches and demonstration debates or the use of the media flyers, posters, billboards or community outreach events,” she added.
According to her, 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 groups as well as use of campaign resources by candidates and political parties.
She said that observers will further report on civic and voters education activities, COVID-19 related issues and awareness as well as the IEC preparatory activities for Election Day at the regional and constituencies levels.
Meanwhile, “EWC also trained and deployed 5 data clerks that will be stationed at the EWC National Information Center in Kanifing to collect checklist reports from constituency observers on three designated reporting days as well as critical incidents from all observers all through the campaign process,” she added.
More so, she continued, pre-election period (Candidate Nomination and Campaign) EWC 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 EWC’s findings. An initial update will be released on Thursday, March 17 which will include the EWC first pre-election observation findings, a second update will be released on Monday, March 28 on campaign observation findings and the third and final update will be released on Friday, April 8 on campaign observation findings and pre-election statement,” she disclosed.
She said the Election Watch committee is a partnership of three organization and other network members with different expertise and background collaborating to observe electoral process in The Gambia. Adding the project is being financed with assistance from National Endowed for Democracy and Technical support from National Democratic Institute for International Affairs.