Nominations for the December 5 presidential election open on November 3. One question hangs over them: will the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) accept the papers of the KMC Mayor, who was adversely named in the Local Government Commission of Inquiry’s report?
This is neither a defense of anyone named in the report nor an attack on the Commission, which did serious work on real problems. The question is narrower and, for the Republic, more important: when a candidate’s eligibility turns on the meaning of the Constitution, who decides?
What the Commission actually found
Section 62(3)(c) disqualifies a person who, while holding public office, “has been found liable for misconduct, negligence, corruption or improper behaviour by any commission or committee of inquiry established by law.” The question is not whether the report criticises the mayor. It is whether the Commission found him liable on any of those four grounds.
Its own words answer that. In the section where it “makes the following findings of fact and law,” the Commission found that “the Mayor’s Office interfered inderectly [sic] in staff recruitment, and contract appointments, often favouring political supporters or associates,” and that his “discretion in staff engagement exceeded lawful limits and constituted abuse of office and administrative overreach.” (Report, p. 282, § 2.5.2.) Under “Legal Findings,” it held that his “indirect involvement in staffing decisions constitutes abuse of office.” (p. 281, § 2.4.8(B).) On loans, it found he “exercised powers not vested in his office, amounting to executive overreach and an abuse of authority.” (p. 387, § 8.5.3.)
Two of the four constitutional expressions appear against him only once, and not as a finding: in the “Recommended Action” column of the Commission’s matrix, which lists “Improper behavior and negligence.” The same row calls his liability “Oversight liability / abuse-of-office exposure.” (p. 445.)
The Commission knew how to use the constitutional words when it meant to. In the very next legal finding, it held that “the CEO and HR Manager’s negligence in establishment control constitutes gross misconduct.” (p. 281, § 2.4.8(C).) Negligence and misconduct for the officers; abuse of office for the Mayor.
Nor can the Government’s White Paper close the gap. The Supreme Court has described commission findings as “subject to the approval of the government,” but approval decides what action follows; it does not rewrite what the Commission found. Section 62(3)(c) asks what a commission found.
A genuine constitutional question
So is abuse of office a form of misconduct? The Constitution lists the two separately in sections 67 and 75, and names abuse of office expressly in the National Assembly disqualifications, sections 90(1)(d) and (e), which reach presidential candidates through section 62(1)(e). Section 62(3)(c) leaves it out. On the other side, section 67 is headed “Misconduct by the President,” and section 70(4) describes it as relating to “removal for … misconduct.”
Reasonable lawyers can disagree. That is precisely the point: this is a genuine question of constitutional interpretation, and the Constitution says who answers it.
Who decides
Section 127(1)(a) gives the Supreme Court “exclusive original jurisdiction … for the interpretation or enforcement of any provision of this Constitution.” In Feryale Ghanem v. Attorney General (2019), that Court cautioned: “This Court – indeed every court – must operate strictly within the limits of its jurisdiction.” The U.S. Supreme Court said much the same this year, quoting its earlier decisions: courts are not “roving commissions” licensed to “sally forth each day looking for wrongs to right.” (Margolin v National Association of Immigration Judges, 2026.) One hopes the IEC does not ascribe that role to itself.
The Elections Act 2025 builds in the same restraint. A voter may object to a nomination on the ground that “it is apparent from the contents of the nomination paper that the candidate is not capable of being elected.” (§ 48(1)(c).) Merriam-Webster defines “apparent” as “clear or manifest to the understanding.” A disqualification that emerges only after contested legal argument is not apparent.
The IEC must still check qualifications (§§ 38(2), 46). But checking whether a candidate meets a qualification is different from deciding what a disputed constitutional term means. That matters because a fundamental right is at stake. Section 26 guarantees every citizen the right, “without unreasonable restrictions,” “to vote and stand for elections at genuine periodic elections for public office.” Restrictions on that right must be applied as written, not enlarged by administrative interpretation.
What “apparent” looks like
Two recent cases show where the line falls.
In 2022, the IEC rejected Momodou Sabally’s National Assembly nomination under section 90(1)(e), which disqualifies a person found by a commission “to be incompetent to hold public office by reason of … misused or abused his or her office, or wilfully acted in a manner pre-judicial to the interests of the State.” As reported, the Janneh Commission found his transactions prejudicial to the public interest and recommended a ban from public office, which the Government accepted; the High Court upheld the rejection, noting he “has been banned from public office for 10 years.” The finding tracked the provision’s wording.
In 2021, Ousainu Darboe stood despite a 2016 conviction and three-year sentence under the Public Order Act. Section 62(3)(b), which applies to convictions “while holding public office,” did not reach him: he held none in 2016. Section 90(1)(c) bars anyone who completed a prison term of over six months within five years of nomination “and has not received a free pardon.” His sentence ended with President Barrow’s pardon in January 2017, so the bar would have applied unless the pardon was a free one, a question answered by the Gazette.
In both cases, the answers came from documents: a finding, a ban, a conviction, a date, a pardon. The mayor’s case is different. No substantive finding says he is liable for “misconduct, negligence, corruption or improper behaviour.” To reject him, the IEC would have to decide that “abuse of office” means “misconduct,” that a recommendation is a finding, or that the Government’s acceptance can supply a finding the Commission did not make. Each is a constitutional interpretation. That is where the IEC’s mandate ends, and the Supreme Court’s begins.
The cost of getting it wrong
If the IEC accepts the nomination and is wrong, the Supreme Court can still correct it: section 127(1)(c) gives it jurisdiction over whether any person “was validly elected to the office of President,” and an election petition lies within ten days of the result (Elections Act § 98). If the IEC rejects the nomination and is wrong, the candidate has a two-day appeal to the IEC itself (§ 48(6)) and whatever judicial review fits before polling day. One error can be corrected; the other may permanently deny a citizen the right to stand. The IEC should choose the error that can be fixed.
Beyond one candidate
An election’s legitimacy rests on more than the count. It also rests on who was allowed onto the ballot, and on whether the body that decided had the authority to do so. Today the question arises from one commission and one candidate; tomorrow it could be any other. The same constitutional discipline must apply regardless of who is affected.
Where a commission has made an explicit finding in the language of the Constitution, the IEC should give it effect. Where it has not, the IEC should accept the nomination and leave the question to the Supreme Court, where the Constitution has placed it.
The IEC counts the votes. It should not decide what the Constitution means.
