By Mustapha Jarju
West African Network for Peace-Building (WANEP) ON WEDNESDAY 2ND November 2022, organized a day-long multi-stakeholders dialogue on consultation to strengthen partnerships in preventing conflict and violence during elections in the Gambia.
The event was attended by delegates from international organizations like NCCRM, European Union, Germany Cooperation, ECOWAS and WANEP.
The Consultation dialogue with stakeholders came at a time when Gambians are preparing to head to the polls for the local Government election which is slated for the 13th of May 2023.
The Multi-Stakeholders consultation on conflict and violence prevention, assembled participants from Civil Society Organizations, government, media and security sectors,
Speaking at the opening of the multi-Stakeholders consultation on conflict and violence prevention, the National Network Coordinator of WANEP Salama Njie said, “the surge in the incitement of violence and political rectories could be a catalyst for global and physical attack,” with this view WANEP bring together actors from different sector to take an approach to address conflict and related electoral disputes.
“There is a need to strengthen the partnership between stakeholders and Civil Society Organizations to prevent threats to human security including political and electoral violence, which have become predominant within the political land scale of The Gambia,” she said.
Madam Salama Njie explained the main objective of the forum which aimed at supporting stakeholders to identify key challenges within the democratic space and provide solutions to ensure peaceful electioneering processes in the Gambia and also to strengthen partnerships.
Speaking on behalf of the European Union (EU) delegation Enya Broun emphasised the commitment the EU attached to the strong partnership between state and non-state actors to contribute to strengthening national capacity to enhance the peaceful electoral process.
Enya Braun added that electoral-related violence can be devastating but can be prevented by p increasing a virtue as a value to the prevention of electoral violence.
The Chairperson of the National Elections Response Group Dr. David Tommy called on state and non-state actors to continue strengthening peace during the election.
, “This is what we are here to talk about, the election is not the voting but what happens before or during and more importantly after elections, and here we are looking at fairness, freeness, and the election mitigation or violence,” he said.
Dr. Tommy implored Gambians to maintain peaceful electoral processes saying, the change in 2017 is a clear manifestation of the importance of a peaceful election.