By Olimatou Coker
The Election Watch Committee (EWC) has announced the training and eventual deployment of at least 71 long-term election observers for the highly-anticipated 9th April parliamentary election.
The Committee is partnering the Peace Ambassadors- The Gambia (PAG), Activista, and the National Youth Parliament (NYP) in observing the electoral process in the lead up to April.
Ndegen Jobe, programme manager, NYP, said 14 nomination observers, including seven regional coordinators and 53 constituency observers are among those deployed. She said the intention is to observe pre-campaign activities including the campaign environment in all regions and constituencies.
She said activities such as political rallies, campaign marches, demonstrations, debates, the use of the media, flyers, and posters will be observed and reported.
“The 14 nomination observers will observe and send nomination checklist report and list of accepted and rejected nominees at the end of each observation day,” Ms Jobe said. “As well, the 53 constituency observers will observe and send campaign observation checklist reports on three designated days as well as send in critical incident reports throughout the process, anytime they occur”.
She said the EWC will issue three public updates to communicate its observation findings.
“These updates will be in the form of a report or brief that will either be posted on a social platform or shared directly into emails of various stakeholders to communicate EWC’s findings. These reports will be based on the direct observations from EWCs 60 observers located in all constituencies and regions as well as the IEC administrative offices in all regions,” she said.
In addition to the pre-election updates, she said the EWC will share with the appropriate authorities any verified critical incident reports or any other relevant information so that actions would be taken to address them.
