By Tabora Bojang
Opposition UDP leader Ousainu Darboe has said his party is willing to give the Independent Electoral Commission IEC under a new chairman the benefit of the doubt, to protect election integrity and deliver a credible election in December.
Mr Darboe added that so far, he has not seen IEC do anything that contravenes the law, arguing that the much maligned attestation process is the doing of the ruling National People’s Party.
When asked during an interview with Kerr Fatou on his trust for the IEC, Darboe said: “IEC by law are supposed to be impartial and transparent in everything they do. Our position is that we are willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I cannot just assume that the IEC is partial. Yes, If they do anything irregular or unfair that we know of we will call it out. The truth is that UDP is going to win this presidential election and if we form our government this is the same IEC we are going to work with because the commission is a government institution. The same way we will work with the police, the army and all sectors of the government. These are government institutions, so if I don’t have any reasons or evidence of unfairness or unlawfulness against them, I cannot be making unsubstantiated comments just because I am a politician looking for support. I would not do that. I will not be tainting people that I am going to work with if I come to government. A responsible politician should not do that. You should not reduce them to hatred in the eyes of the public without any reasons”.
He revealed that in the last [2021] elections, allegations were pointed to the former [IEC] chairman, but now that they have a new chairman and deputy, ‘let us give them the benefit of the doubt and see how they are going to perform’.
According to Mr Darboe, he led a delegation to the Commission before the commencement of the voter registration exercise and held a meeting with officials where they expressed to them their fears and the concerns of the citizens regarding the conduct of elections.
He said the IEC officials assured them that they will live up to the expectations of fairness and transparency and that they will not allow anybody to make them do any unlawful act.
“They assured us that their doors are open all the time and we can engage them on all our doubts. In fact they even promised to allow us access to their database to see if there is any manipulation. So for me and the UDP, for now, we have not seen them do anything that is in contravention with our laws,” he said.
He said the attestation process that people are talking about should not be blamed on the IEC, because the Commission clearly opposed the inclusion of attestation in the Elections Act, but it was the NPP National Assembly Members who insisted on it and voted for its inclusion in the bill by a simple majority while other NAMs voted against it.
“What the IEC wanted was for them to be granted full powers to properly scrutinise every voter card applicant. But the NPP NAMs refused that, so they are the ones responsible for all these dubious acts. The same NPP NAMs hiked the nomination fees for presidential candidates which Adama Barrow himself benefited from when coming to power from D500,000 to D1 million. They increased the registration fees for political parties to D2 million in our Elections Act. And for this and many others, Gambians should come together and remove this government. If not they may even ask us to pay for the air that we breathe,” Darboe warned.
