Manneh, thanks as always for providing succinct answers to questions posed here relating to our electoral process. I hope you find more time to engage us on G_L now against October 18, 2001 and help us close the loopholes Yaya and cohorts like Gabriel Roberts and Joseph Joof want to use in order to steal the elections. Before I deal with the answers you gave to Malamin’s questions, please allow me to ask you to walk us through the stages of certification of the final tally per counting station and the eventual announcement of the results per constituency. I believe this is an area that has also been of concern to many Gambians. If you will recall, in 1996, allegations were made that the votes were tampered with between and during transmission of the results from the field, to Gamtel to State House. How did Gamtel and State House come into the picture, is still a mystery to many. I thought that the IEC Offices around the country and certainly their Banjul HQ were the only authorized transmittal centers to the people through the public and private media. If my memory serves me right, I think we dealt with this topic somewhat in earlier correspondence. But for the interest of transparency in these trying times, I respectfully ask you to walk us through the process again. Now, turning to your answers, I feel you are overly optimistic in your analysis. That optimism might be attributed to your familiarity with some of the players here. I do NOT by any means want to question the integrity or bravery of the Party agents or IEC representatives involved here. I believe the problem is with the APRC (November 22 Movement) thugs. Like you, I believe that some Opposition stalwarts are willing to put their lives on the line rather than part with ballot boxes. However, that is NOT the point. The point is what are the APRC thugs willing to do in order to steal the elections? Would they be prepared to kill someone in order to steal the elections? Clearly the answer to this question is yes. Remember, we are dealing here with people that sanctioned the cold-blooded massacre of children as young as three. For the vermin to assassinate political opponents is nothing to them. So, having brave and honest Opposition agents to safeguard the boxes does NOT solve our problem. We solve our problem by covering the loophole that will allow the vermin to ambush a convoy carrying ballot boxes. We all know that the cowards do NOT attack when they are outnumbered. At the polling stations, they will be outnumbered. So, to solve our problem, let us count the ballots at the polling station. To address Gabriel Roberts’ bogus concerns that once the votes are announced the vanquished Party’s supporters will go on the rampage, the Opposition can agree that the results announcements will be choreographed. In other words, the votes will be counted at the polling stations but the results will NOT be announced until all the ballots from various stations in the country are tabulated. That way, as soon as ballots are counted at polling stations, agents will only inform their respective Party leaders and IEC representatives at the polling stations will inform IEC central Office in Banjul. Manneh, on paper our electoral laws might be the best some observers have seen before. Some Gambians might also be the most honest and dedicated citizens some observers have ever encountered. Having said that, we also know that despicable characters like Baabaa Jobe and Gabriel Roberts also live in Gambia and they participate fully in the electoral process. Their influence way outweighs the impact of a dozen or so honest polling agents. We have to neutralize the vermin. I am sure you appreciate the fact that as much as you can narrate ‘good’ experiences you had as an election official, there are others that can narrate experiences whereby they were intimidated by security officials and forced to part with their ballot boxes. Always remember that the 1996 elections was declared as UNFAIR and attracted sanctions to our country from civilized nations. Gabriel Roberts has no good reason for reducing the number of counting centers. His only reason for doing that is to enable Yaya’s thugs to steal the election. The Opposition CANNOT solve this impasse with Roberts by banking on the resolve of Opposition agents accompanying the ballot boxes or the integrity of IEC officials. This problem can only be solved by neutralizing the APRC thugs. The way you do that is to outnumber them at the polling stations/counting centers. If Gabriel Roberts thinks that he will be allowed to steal this election for Yaya, he must be a bigger fool than I thought. Yaya is finished and anyone that wishes to stand in the way of the overwhelming majority of Gambians, will also suffer the same fate as Yaya. Gambians know that Roberts wants to steal the elections. We will NOT let him. Manneh, I thank you again for your contributions and look forward to your response regarding what transpired during the last election between counting centers, IEC, Gamtel and State House and how we can avoid the APRC/IEC shenanigans. KB >From: Lamin Manneh PF <[log in to unmask]> >Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list ><[log in to unmask]> >To: [log in to unmask] >Subject: Re: Election procedures: Question >Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2001 00:48:25 -0700 > _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask] if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------