Culled from The Observer Thursday, November 1, 2001 IEC Code of Campaign Conduct for Referendum As preparations gain momentum for the up-coming referendum slated for November 13, the Independent Electoral Commission has outlined the code of campaign conduct for political parties. Speaking to our reporter Monday at his office, the Independent Electoral Commission’s (IEC) communications officer, Mr Said Usuf, noted the referendum was not a politically partisan issue but that it only dealt with the laws of the country and "by the nature of all the political parties, they would have interest and they would also have different interpretations of the wording of the laws of the land. Therefore, they are free to go out and educate their people on the provisions of the Amendment Bill but it cannot take the form of campaigning as in the Presidential election," Usuf emphasised. He said this was necessary in order to enable everybody to understand and to make their own informed decisions before the referendum day. Mr Usuf also said even the IEC would conduct a series of programmes on the TV and the radio to sensitive people on the referendum "because a good number of the population would not be able to read and interprete the laws by themselves or understand what the amendment would mean to them in the long term. So all the political parties are free to come out and educate the people as part of their role as political parties". He said that was their constitutional mandate. Mr Usuf further asserted that the IEC would also inform people during its sensitisation programme on all the sections of the constitution affected by the referendum . The IEC communications officer also revealed to our reporter that in the up-coming referendum, ballot boxes may not be black and white simply because there was a political party whose party colour was white. "So the IEC was conscious of this colour implications because it did not want to mislead anybody. He said the IEC would come up with a decision as soon as possible on the colours of the ballot boxes, adding that the the tokens would remain the same. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp <<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>> 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] <<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>