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Momodou
Denmark
11681 Posts |
 Posted - 27 Jul 2006 : 15:57:05
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Foroyaa Editorial
THE IEC AND THE REGISTRATION OF VOTERS
The 2006 supplementary registration of voters constitutes the greatest disservice to the sovereign Gambian people. The Independent Electoral Commission has as its motto “fairplay, integrity and transparency.” Displaying fairplay simply means that the IEC will not afford different treatment to different persons attributable wholly or mainly to their political allegiances.
Display of integrity means that the commission and staff shall perform their duties without fear or favour, affection or ill will.
Transparency means that no restriction shall be placed to access information in order to ensure that the undiluted choice of the Gambian people is produced during elections.
On the 5th of June the IEC wrote to the political parties to indicate that supplementary registration of voters will take place for a period of two weeks commencing 19th June and run up to 2nd July.
The IEC needed to sensitize the Gambian people to know what the requirements for registration were. They should have made it clear that political parties are not responsible for giving attestations and had no business in establishing tables and mobilising village heads or community members to sign attestation forms for Tom, Dick and Harry.
Two weeks notice was too short for campaign to be done to educate the masses to know how registration of voters is to be conducted under law. This lack of adequate information undermined the spirit of transparency. To make matters worse the leadership of the IEC informed their personnel not to question people with documents.
Consequently, many party operatives decided to prepare Attestation Forms, photocopy the samples and issued them at random. It even became a trade for some as they received from D5 to D25 for the forms. Many people who were unqualified to be registered exploited the loop hole to be registered.
Many Gambians who are qualified to be registered became late comers. The IEC extended the registration of voters twice. However the exercise was just in name. In actual fact many registration centres either did not see the registration teams or had teams, which informed the people that their films were exhausted. The IEC was allocated 120 million dalasis in this year’s budget for electoral purposes. How can it be short of electoral materials and still expect to defend its integrity? What was more disgusting is the selective presence of the registration teams during the extension; for example, the registration team was kept in Sinchu Alagie until they finish their work without shortage of films because of the influence of one Aziz Tamba. In Kombo Central the team abandoned Kembuje where people were protesting and concentrated on Darsilami.
In many places people joined the queues to no avail. Many people have desire to replace their lost cards. If films are not available how can the IEC be considered to have respect for fairplay? The commission needs to have a meeting with its field staff and the political parties to map out a way to address their problems with immediacy.
The faith people have in the commission has dropped and only genuine and visible rectification of wrongs can elevate it. We hope the commission will not be found wanting in this regard.
Source: Foroyaa Newspaper Burning Issue
Issue No. 57/2006, 26- 27 July, 2006
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