The following is culled from:
clari.world.gov.politics,clari.world.africa.western,clari.world.mideast+africa
News groups
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BANJUL, July 13 (AFP) - Gambia's government is planning to rig
presidential and parliamentary polls later this year and next, but
the opposition will not participate unless elections are free, fair
and transparent, an opposition leader warned Friday.
Hamat Bah, head of the National Reconciliation Party (NRP) in
the west African state, said three opposition parties had walked out
of a Thursday meeting with the electoral commission when told
vote-counting would take place in administrative centres instead of
polling stations.
Bah said votes had been counted on the spot in polling stations
in recent local elections. The electoral commission had appeared
willing to adopt this method in the presidential election next
October and the parliamentary vote in January.
"They (electoral commission officials) had a meeting with the
highest authorities and they changed their mind ... arguing that
security could not be guaranteed," Bah said.
"It's a way to rig the elections again ... another way to try to
steal the elections," the politician charged.
The opposition parties would meet next week to decide on a
common response, he said, adding: "We will not participate in
elections if they are not free, fair and clear."
Bah also reiterated opposition criticism of electoral lists,
claiming that people from the Casamance area of neighbouring Senegal
had been registered as Gambian voters.
The opposition claims the government wants to obtain a maximum
vote from the Diolas, an ethnic group straddling Gambia and
Casamance. Gambia's President Yahya Jammeh is a Diola.
Gambia, one of the poorest countries in the world, is a former
British colony which gained independence within the Commonwealth in
1965 and was ruled by Dawda Kairaba Jawara until overthrown in a
bloodless military coup led by Jammeh in 1994.
All political activity was banned and a programme was launched
to eliminate all corruption before a timetable for transition to
civilian law was introduced.
A referendum on the new constitution was held in 1996 and
endorsed by 70.4 percent of voters.
Jammeh won presidential elections later that year, and his
Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC) won
parliamentary elections in 1997.
The constitution approved by referendum in 1996 came into effect
in 1997. It vests executive power in a president elected by direct
universal suffrage. A 45-member National Assembly holds legislative
power.

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