THE BATTLE AGAINST ORGANISED FRAUD IN THE REGISTRATION OF VOTERSAuthor: Publisher | Date: 10-05-11 | Topic: Editorial
The registration of voters has started in earnest. The problem we have highlighted many months ago is now beginning to surface.
The IEC has made tremendous efforts to improve on the registration exercise. The person who wants to have a voter’s card can now go directly to the registering officer and give reasons why he or she should be allowed to get a voter’s card without relying on any intermediary.
What is unfortunate with the current registration exercise in the KMC is that APRC stalwarts have refused to respect the law and are undermining all the good work that has been done by the IEC with impunity. Foroyaa is stating the uncontestable facts and the APRC leadership is reading every detail. If they fail to advise their National Assembly members, Chairmen and women, youth leaders and councils of elders to respect the law and good practice then they should be seen to be in complicity with the commissions and omissions. The IEC has tried and is trying to ensure that no one is left at a registration centre who is not a Registering officer or clerk, a security personnel or a party agent. However, those who intend to defy the law are finding new ways of subverting the electoral process because of the introduction of attestation forms as a National Identity Document.
In any sovereign Republic that is worth the salt every citizen will have a birth certificate at birth and cannot access any other National document without producing it. It is the birth certificate which provides a foundation for getting a National Identity card and a passport or traveling documents. The Gambia has commemorated 46 years of nominal Independence yet there are thousands of people who claim to be Gambians who are without a single National document. How can a Government bring about development which could end poverty when it cannot even assure each sovereign Gambian a National document? Instead of facilitating the acquisition of National documents by making them accessible free of charge; now the IEC is mandated to issue Attestation forms free of charge in order to make them accessible to every person who claims to be qualified to be registered as a voter.
One would have thought that every Gambian has family ties. Hence if one collects an attestation form one is expected to go back to one’s mother, father, uncles, aunts and other relatives to get the five elders who could confirm one´s citizenship to fill one´s attestation form. Why should a group of self appointed attesters locate themselves at Registration centres and collaborate with APRC National Assembly members, Councilors, Chairmen and Chairwomen to get them to fill attestation forms for every Samba, Demba and Pateh. Their youths brew green tea and reach out to every stranger who comes in search of a voter´s card. Such strangers are directed to pick up attestation forms and asked to bring it back to them for further direction to the Council of elders. Some are not literate. Hence the literate ones will fill their part and they would Thumb print. This is then taken to the Registering officer to request for registration as a voter. If the person is registered the card is taken back to them and the number is recorded and the address of the voter taken. The sad development is that the council of elders is being put at the risk of being charged with fraud. Section 110 of the Elections Act reads:
“A person who
(a) Knowingly makes a false declaration or statement on any Claim for Registration either as a claimant or on behalf of a claimant,
(b) Forges, counterfeits, alters, defaces or fraudulently destroys any claim for Registration, voting card or counterfoil,
(c) Sells, purchases or fraudulently possesses any Claim for Registration, voter’s card or counterfoil,
(d) Registers to vote in more than one constituency without applying for transfer of registration, or
(e) Induces or procures any other person to register or to vote knowing that such person is prohibited or is not qualified or entitled by any law to register to vote,
Commits an offence and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years and shall be incapable during the period of five years from the date of his conviction of being registered as a voter or of voting at any election.”
The law is very clear. Sadly enough many cases are coming to our notice which are likely to implicate many people who are serving as attestants. Take this case in Bundung Six Junction where a woman who was born in 1956 who has become a regular attestant of any one who approaches the council of elders, attested to the form of someone who was born in 1955.
We also came across the case of a watchman who originated from a country in the sub-region who has an attestation form filled by three Council of elders at Kanifing South and was looking for two other attestants only to be exposed as a foreign National when he confessed to the fourth person he appealed to.
The fact that a 1956 born is attesting to a form belonging to a 1944 born and children under 18 are registered by relying on attestation forms instead of their birth certificates undermines the very integrity of the registration exercise. The IEC has every right to inquire about the birth place of claimants since the person has to be born or resident in a constituency to be registered as a voter. We are informed of voters being transported from one constituency to another and others changing their surnames in attestation forms.
Let those people know that the registration is computerized and photographs go with voting card numbers. Double registration could land a person in jail. It is also to be noted that having been driven from registration centres some of the APRC stalwarts whose names we will reveal later if they fail to desist from the practice have moved to compounds close to the registration centres and are engaged in organised manipulation of the system of attestation. Observers who are journalists or members of the international community should go to Serrekunda Lower Basic School where registration is taking place. They will find a compound a few metres from the school whose owner we had approached for a discussion where attestation forms are filled as if the place is a registration centre. We are doing a thorough investigation of all the characters involved including the compound owners and give concrete facts on the number of attestations these few people have made.
If APRC is indeed claiming to be a majority party why is it finding it difficult to order all his party stalwarts to register and go home to do other things and leave the registering officers to do their work. True Gambians have family ties that could fill their attestation forms. It goes without saying that since the list of voters is going to be posted it is important for all citizens to help in their scrutiny so that objections will be filed in the revising court to cleanse the list of all the mess made by those who are afraid of a free and fair election.
This article comes from FOROYAA Online
http://www.foroyaa.gm
The URL for this story is:
http://www.foroyaa.gm/modules/news/article.php?storyid=6795
"True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
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