The opposition United Democratic Party UDP has said it does not rule out staging a peaceful protest and court action to demand the release of full information by the Independent Electoral Commission IEC on the 2026 supplementary voter registration exercise.
The party issued a statement last week noting it found a discrepancy of 28,932 voters between the IEC’s announced figures and a dataset provided to the party. It said it made repeated formal requests to the commission for clear explanation about these discrepancies as well as provide information of registration statistics before and after the removal of duplicate records, details of deleted registrations and the methodology used to identify and verify duplicate entries.
According to the party, the IEC failed to respond to these requests and failed to acknowledge receipt of their petition.
However IEC vice-chairman Cherno Jallow dismissed claims that there is a discrepancy in the data provided. While acknowledging that the commission received the party’s requests but was “too busy” to respond and that it will do so, VC Jallow insisted the commission is not and would not deny any party access to information.
UDP Youth President Haji Suwaneh who described the commission’s explanation as “flimsy”, maintained that the party will embark on and lawful means to respond to the commission’s “refusal to do the needful”.
He said the party will explore all options on the table including a legal action and peaceful protest.
”Our stance is that IEC must bring these documents out. I cannot speak about the court process because the legal team is handling that, but for the peaceful procession, we are planning on that and it can happen any day. We are not compromising this because these are public documents that are supposed to be publicised. The IEC’s denial of our position that there is a discrepancy in the supplementary voter register is not true. They have an ulterior motive and we are not going to allow them to take us into an election where there is no transparency,” Suwaneh vowed.
