FOROYAA Newspaper Burning Issue Issue No. 81/2006, 26 - 26 September, 2006 EDITORIAL THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF AN ERA IN GAMBIAN POLITICS It is an irony that the APRC regime changed the constitution to eradicate the second round of voting because of the fear that it could not get 50% of the votes cast in the first round. Now it is said to have won 67% of the votes in the first round. What is responsible for this? In the 2001 Presidential elections President Jammeh has 242,304 votes. Despite the fact that 94,000 voters were added in the register in 2006 alone he has managed to increase his popular vote by 22,000 to 264,473. Needless to say, the Register of voters now contains 670,336 voters. However, only 392, 685 voters voted. NADD had 23,473 votes which constitutes 6% of the votes. Despite the support of the NRP and GPDP the UDP vote declined from 149,448 votes in 2001 to 104,808 votes in 2006. This tends to give the impression that UDP could not serve as a vanguard for all the other parties to unite around to dislodge Jammeh. It is now time for opposition parties to go back to the drawing board. It is very clear from the results that the voters were concentrating on UDP and APRC. In their campaign the UDP emphasized that if the voters in the opposition cast their vote for NADD they are casting it for the APRC meaning that they will help the APRC to win. The APRC also told their supporters that if they cast their votes for NADD they will help the UDP to win. Now that NADD had only 6 percent of the votes it could not serve as a decisive factor on either side. Hence one cannot say the NADD vote prevented the UDP from winning the elections. The Gambian people should now begin to look for a new instrument to be able to bring about change. The old instrument has proven to be ineffective. This is a time for people to identify a sober leadership among the opposition to unite around to give direction and significance to opposition politics and move away from tribally motivated notions. ANOTHER FIVE YEARS FOR JAMMEH By Baboucarr Ceesay Gambians went to the poll on Friday, 22nd September 2006 to decide who to entrust with their sovereign power to preside over the affairs of this country. As the third Presidential election under the Second Republic, this election is one of the most talked about red letters day of the year. The three aspirants for presidency were Mr. Halifa Sallah of the National Alliance for Democracy and Development (NADD), Lawyer Ousainou Darboe of United Democratic Party (UDP) and the incumbent Yahya Jammeh of the Alliance for Patriotic Re-Orientation and Construction (APRC). Voting commenced at 7.00 am. During the electoral process, reports reached Foroyaa that the Electoral Codes of conduct in certain areas are breached. This reporter went to the Senegambia Garage in Dippa Kunda to investigate the matter and he found a man who seemed to be in his 60s and a young woman (confirmed to be APRC members) were sitting near polling station B100 as if they have an influential role to play in the casting of votes by the electorate. A party agent intervened, but the man resisted until the NADD patrol team arrived and convinced him of the unconstitutionality of his presence on the voting ground. He said that he was waiting for his party chairman and ‘Yai compins’ to meet him on the ground; that he was the one who provided chairs for the polling staff. But the young woman in accompany cunningly vacated the premises whilst the man kept a distance away from the polling station. At this juncture, the police officers at the polling station in collaboration with the Presiding Officer started to prevent people hanging or loitering around the polling station. In a similar case, a van wagon, Mercedes Benz numbered BJL 4905 D was found parked at a junction between polling station B98 and B99in Dippa Kunda with an APRC flag. The flag was untied from the mirror of the transport upon the intervention of the NADD vigilant patrol team. However, voting went smoothly in Farato and Brikama despite apparent signs of voters apathy. There was a low turn out of voters in polling station like C162A Brikama Neema Geebungoto, C62 Brikama Neema Geebungoto IEC and C163 Brikama Neemataba Girl Guides Center. In some stations there were few or virtually no person in queues before Friday Prayers. This reporter met four young women on the way from Brikama Gidda Bantaba polling station C165A. These young women were loudly complaining about threats made by the President during the campaign. When interrupted with questions by our reporter they all indicated that they are definitely intimidated by the statements that the head of state made during the campaign that neither coup d ’etat nor election can unseat him. The most out spoken woman among them (name withheld) said that her parents did not vote and advised her not to vote because Jammeh is capable of creating chaos in the country if he should loose his seat. “Let’s leave the sleeping dog to lie; no matter what, let there be peace, if we can manage to survive the situation,” she melancholically remarked. In Gunjur and Brufut during the voting the atmosphere was normal and tranquil and voter turnout was considerably better. A presiding officer in a certain polling station in Gunjur revealed that there are several people whose names were neither in the counter foil nor in the voters list but hold voters cards and were all rejected by his polling staff. Foroyaa went to station C44 and C45 at Kafuta at around 3.40pm shortly before the curtain of the election was drawn but voters only turn up at random and always in small numbers. The presiding officers said that the turnout was better only in the morning. When the ballot drums were sealed at 4.00pm, this reporter went to the counting center for Kombo East at the Baffrow complex in Mandinaba. Counting started at eleven to 2.00pm. Though the counting was transparent but the security outnumbered the people at the counting center. At the end of the whole electoral process Yahya Jammeh of APRC scored 264,404, Ousainou Darboe of UDP/NRP/GPDP alliance scored 104,808 and Halifa Sallah of NADD polled 23,473. President Jammeh got a 67.3 of the total number of votes cast. DARBOE REJECTS ELECTION RESULTS Ousainou Darboe, the leader of the UDP, has rejected the result of the presidential election. In an interview with the Focus on Africa on Sunday, Mr. Darboe said that one of the APRC National Assembly members had signed a document on behalf of a returning officer in one of the constituencies up country. Mr. Darboe said, “The military presence was very prominent. Some of them were well armed. All these were intimidating factors. We do not really think that the IEC was really in charge of the process.” As to what his next move will be, Mr Darboe said the Executive Committee of his party will meet and take a decision on the issue, pointing out that the decision could be legal or political. The journalist further put it to Mr Darboe that the opposition was fragmented and that is why he did not make an impact on the election. He remarked, “That would have been a valid statement if the NADD had also polled a considerable number of votes, but that is not the case. I have always maintained that a united front is meaningless without a level playing field. However united we would have been, the results would have been the same thing. ” The journalist further told Mr Darboe that he had contested three times and lost three times and each time he complained of flaws. He asked him (Darboe) whether people would take him seriously. Mr Darboe retorted: “Those people who the situation in The Gambia will take me seriously, but those who do not the situation in The Gambia will not take me seriously. Those who support the APRC will also not take me seriously. The 1996 election was not condemned by me alone. It was condemned by the whole international community. It was wrong to say that I am merely complaining. In 2001 I didn’t complain. In fact, I congratulated the President, although subsequently I discovered that there were some flaws. This year I am complaining because I have reasons to complain.” HALIFA ON VOTER APATHY A journalist working for the BBC Focus on Africa programme, yesterday interviewed Halifa Sallah on the outcome of the presidential election. Halifa Sallah said, “We are seeing voter apathy. We are gathered to find out what was responsible for that. We have seen that President Jammeh has received over 264,000 votes and the votes of the main opposition candidate who contested the last election is about 104,000 which is a drop from what has been received in the past election from Mr Darboe.” Halifa posited: “We need to get an instrument to prevent voter apathy and to get votes from President Jammeh. Jammeh had managed during his campaign to show that he is a power that cannot be removed. If you look at the campaign, it was an issue of liberation. It is that type of mentality we must remove from the people.” To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask]