Peace Ambassadors Publishes Report on Presidential Elections Nomination Process

By Alimatou S  Bajinka

 

Peace Ambassadors the Gambia (PAG) in partnership with the National Democratic Institute (NDI)  has recently completed an overall report on their findings and observations of the nomination process of candidates, ahead of the December 4th Presidential election at a presser briefing held at its main Office in Kanifing.  

 

Bubacarr Sambou, President Peace Ambassadors The Gambia said Peace Ambassadors deployed an observer to observe the political candidates during nomination process and public scrutiny during the 8 days period, from the 30th October to November 6th at the IEC headquarters in kanifing. 

 

“Our observer was permitted by the IEC to observe the submission of nomination papers by aspirants, he was only given 5 minutes to go through all the files of over 20 aspirations who submitted their nomination papers. Therefore observation findings only generally comprise the submission procedures and the general environment at the IEC office during the the process”.  He said.

 

According to the  report submitted by the PAG observer, the IEC office opens daily on time with the returning officer and other IEC officials present to received the nomination papers from presidential candidates.

 

The observer however noted that the vast space between them and the IEC where the nomination papers were submitted, prevents them from  observing which documents were being submitted in their various packages.

 

Their report revealed that no aspirants was prevented from submitting their nomination papers. For instance where aspirants fails to provide all legal requirements as prescribed by the electoral laws of The Gambia, the IEC provided them the opportunity to resubmit a complete nomination package.

 

“According to IEC only 6 of the 23 submissions where In compliance with the IEC guidelines and were later announced as candidates for the 2021 presidential Elections” Sambou Stated.

 

PAG’s unveiled that the IEC’s disqualifications of aspirants was based on the following rules: 

 

A. Failure to submit the required number of registered voters who support their candidacy for all or some administrative areas,

B. A signed copy of the code of campaign ethics,

C. A complete assets declaration form,

D. Forgery detected from the submissions,

E. Submitting under the banner of an unregistered party; all of which outlined by the electoral laws of The Gambian.

 

“Due to the limited amount of time provided for public scrutiny, PAG was not able to observe omissions or errors in candidates’ nomination packages” he said.

In partnership with the National Democratic Institute-The Gambia (NDI), Peace Ambassadors is expanding its election observation efforts from Election-Day observation to systematic long-term observation covering major electoral processes within the entire election cycle".