Binta Jaiteh
National Assembly candidates have signed election Code of Conduct for April parliamentary election. The signing ceremony was held at the Sir Dawda Kairaba Conference Centre in Bijilo funded by the International IDEA.
Speaking at the signing ceremony, David Belgrove British High Commissioner, said: “I would like to come down to the IDEA for conducting this dialogue and we are privilege and proud to support. I also commend all the participants who show interest to participate in the 2022 National Assembly elections in aspiration of peaceful competition and fairness. It is actually going with good attitude for a successful election.”
Dr Tommy, chairperson of National Election Response Group (NERG) said democratic is the need to hold free and fair elections so as to enable the people will to be expressed. For this to happen, he added, it is essential that elections must be held in such a way that voters can choose their representatives.
“As we all know election are based on principles of win or die mentality hence the intensified threats according to the IEC approved 251 is a huge number and this is an appropriate forum for rallying calling on all partners to join hands and renew the commitment both resources, energy and time,” he said.
“I will refer you to the election act, the IEC is empowered to enforce a code of conduct the acceptance of the IEC code of conduct is mandatory on all candidates whether party or independent. However, campaign in its totality should be a battle of sharing idea and ideologies and not of weapon. It includes that we must not engage in slander, must guide species and our actions and this is not only directed to party leaders but the whole country. Campaign should not be organized in a manner to create violence,” he said
Maurice Engueleguele, senior program officer International IDEA said the document seeks to keep a kind of behaviour in the electoral campaign and one of the changes that we observe since the previous Code of Conduct signed is this spirit of dialogue between candidates.
“However, another element that I want to highlight apart from the 221 confirmed candidates approved by IEC 19% are women for the first time in the history of The Gambia and 1 person with disabilities due to the trust in the Code of Conduct,” he said.
