G-Lers,

The following, culled from the Daily Observer of today, gives the reaction
of the IEC on allegations by the UDP in trying to justify their
unjustifiable boycott of the National Assembly Elections. I will post the
full text of the original press release giving details of where the
"IMAGINARY TENS OF THOUSANDS OF VOTES" were moved by the IEC

Have a good day, Gassa.


IEC CHAIRMAN CLARIFIES SAYS UDP ALLEGATIONS ARE BASELESS

Amidst on-going UDP accusations over the recent transfers and replacements
of voters cards conducted by the Independent Electoral Commission which the
party denounced as ‘seriously flawed’, the IEC Chairman, Gabriel J Roberts,
has given a detailed reaction, clarifying the commission’s actions and
dismissing the accusations which the UDP cited as reasons for its boycott of
the coming parliamentary elections as unsustainable.

According to Mr Roberts, the UDP accusations were “not only unfounded but
lack sincerity and goodwill.” He said the practice for voters to be given
opportunity to pay for and replace lost or mutilated voters cards and also
to transfer their votes from one polling station to another within or out of
the constituency in which they were previously registered was in complete
compliance with section 35 of the Election Decree of 1996. The IEC chairman
argued that the statement issued by the UDP that it had become aware of the
peculiar and special exercise embarked upon by the IEC to allow massive
transfers of voters from one constituency to another was aimed deliberately
at misleading public opinion and to discolour an otherwise legal and
beneficial exercise of the electoral process. The release from the chairman
further outlined in tabular form all recent transfers and replacements made
with a grand total of 1436 for transfers and 91 for replacements for public
notification.

Mr Roberts confirmed there were certainly no instances of voters suddenly
shifting in their thousands from one constituency to another. “Out of
509,301 registered voters country-wide, only 1,436 voters opted to transfer
their vote from one constituency to another and 91 lost cards were
replaced,” he said. With regards to information from the IEC to political
parties on their activities, Mr Roberts said no political party could claim
that IEC had at any time withheld information from them. He said information
to parties has been disseminated through invitations to press briefings and
discussions as well as live phone in television and radio programmes.

Mr Roberts also argued that the UDP had made formal report of irregularities
in the transfer and replacement exercise to the IEC noting that in fact
several UDP candidates have already been processed to contest the National
Assembly elections by the time the press release announcing the boycott was
issued. The IEC chairman went on to say that the development of the new
register of voters used in the last Presidential election was funded by the
British Government under the Department for International Development. He
said the register which was issued on October 14 was about 99 per cent
accurate with 5,000 mistakes in about 510,000 registered voters.

He said it was unfair for the UDP to claim that the IEC equally rejected the
participation of some seventy five thousand Gambians who lived and worked
abroad asserting that the very idea of registering Gambian voters abroad
came from the IEC. He said the exercise was deemed infeasible after much
effort, expenses and research into the matter through Gambia’s foreign
missions. He concluded by saying that though the IEC could not claim
perfection, it had brought transformations and conducted elections that have
been unprecedented in the history of The Gambia.








_________________________________________________________________
Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com

<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>

To view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface
at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html
To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to:
[log in to unmask]

<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>