The following is culled from: clari.world.gov.politics,clari.world.africa.western,clari.world.mideast+africa Newsgroups. BANJUL, April 23 (AFP) - Gambia holds local elections on Thursday, with the victory of the ruling Patriotic Alliance for Reorientation and Construction (APRC) a foregone conclusion as two key opposition parties boycott the polls. The APRC is standing unopposed in 85 of the 117 local council seats and four of the eight town halls up for grabs, according to the independent electoral commission (IEC). In the remaining council seats, the ruling party will face 17 independent candidates and a handful of contenders from the small opposition Party for National Reconciliation (NRP), the IEC's head of operations, Maleh Sallah, told AFP. The four town halls still to be attributed include that of the capital, Banjul, where the regime faces two independent candidates. The two main opposition parties, the United Democratic Party (UDP) and the Democratic Organisation of the People for Independence and Socialism (PDOIS), are refusing to take part in the vote. The UDP, which boycotted legislative elections in January, has vowed not to take part in any ballots until the electoral register has been revised. It complained in January that there had been a "massive transfer" of voters between the electoral lists of different constituencies. The PDOIS is refusing to field candidates because a law on decentralisation was not approved until two days before the deadline for registering contenders and has still not entered into force. The poll in the tiny West African country of 1.4 million people is therefore set to hand an easy, pre-determined win to the party of President Yahya Jammeh, who came to power in a coup in 1994 and was elected for the first time in 1996, before being re-elected in 2001. The APRC holds 45 of the 48 elected seats in Gambia's parliament. The IEC's Sallah remained upbeat about Thursday's ballot. "We are happy there have not been any complaints from the candidates," he said, adding that the poll was important because it gave "power back to the people". ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ To unsubscribe/subscribe or 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] ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~