By Pap Saine


BANJUL, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Gambians voted on Thursday in a parliamentary
election that the main opposition party is boycotting and which will do
little to loosen President Yahya Jammeh's hold on the West African country.

Because of the United Democratic Party's boycott, only 15 of Gambia's 48
constituencies are being contested.

Officials said that turnout appeared much lower than for last October's
presidential election, won comfortably by the 36-year-old Jammeh, who first
seized power in a 1994 military coup and says he favours one-party rule.

"We started late because when we came on time there was nobody around," one
electoral commission official told Reuters from a polling station in the tiny
former British colony.

Gambia is an impoverished sliver of land almost surrounded by Senegal. Its
1.25 million people live from groundnuts, fishing and tourism.

Opposition parties currently hold nine seats in Gambia's parliament and there
are two independents. The ruling Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and
Construction has 37 seats and Jammeh gets to appoint another five deputies
himself.

PRESIDENT SAYS ONE-PARTY SYSTEM IS BEST

"Opposition is not good, it creates division," said Jammeh in a message to
voters ahead of the election.

"Vote for my party so that you will benefit from government projects; to have
roads, communications, schools, milling machines etc. If you vote for the
opposition do not expect any development in your constituencies."

Accusing some opponents still standing in the election of being "atheists and
communists who do not pray five times a day as required by Islam," Jammeh
told voters: "A one-party system is best."

Jammeh's opponents accused him of fixing the presidential election, although
a group of foreign observers said that it appeared to have been generally
fair -- unlike the widely questioned 1996 vote in which he first won election
as a civilian president.

Oussainou Darboe, whose UDP had two seats in parliament, called a boycott. He
said that the polls would be seriously flawed because ruling party supporters
were being allowed to transfer their votes to opposition strongholds.

The independent electoral commission said the allegations were untrue.

"I urge my supporters not to vote for any opposition party," said Darboe, a
prominent human rights lawyer who came a distant second to Jammeh in the
presidential poll.

Gambians vote by dropping marbles into drums bearing the picture of the
candidate they favour. Polling started at 7 a.m. (0700 GMT) and closes at 4
p.m. The candidates with the most marbles should be announced this evening.

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