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| Bah, Darboe, Asst. Mayor of Raleigh, NC and O.J. |
When you try logging
on to IEC website this is the message that greets you "IEC.GM is Under
Construction. Come Back Soon." Yet, the Electoral
Commission is churning our "press statements" at breakneck speed
warning opposition parties of the catastrophic impediments they are likely to
face as a result of the recently passed "Election (Amendment) Act
2015".
The most recent press
statement from the IEC as reported by The Point newspaper (The Daily Observer
would rather carry a story by one Alhagie Balla Musa Wally who discovered
recently that the Diaspora news outlets are the most boring in the world
because they focus on the negatives of Jammeh) is urging political parties to
regularize their respective statuses to enable them to contest in the upcoming
presidential elections slated for 2016.
The statement goes on
to state that "...all political parties are to ensure that all their
executive members are resident in the country and that all political parties
have a secretariat in each Administrative Region and that the Constitution of
the Party requires it to hold a biennial congress."
The IEC statement goes
further to say that ",,,in accordance with the said laws, each existing
part shall write an undertaking that it shall submit its yearly audited
accounts to the Commission." The statement ends in what is referred to in
journalism as the 'kicker' (I learned the term from Coach - Dr. Ebrima Ceesay)
which says "[T]he above criteria AND ANY OTHER (emphasis ours) as
enshrined in the Electoral Laws of The Gambia shall be met by all existing
political parties latest 31st March 2016 as per the Election (Amendment Act
2015.
To cap it off, the
statement reminded all parties that to field a presidential candidate it will
cost each party D 500,000 ( $11,000) and D 50,000 for each parliamentary
candidate in a forty-eight seat parliament that the regime is proposing to
increase to fifty-three if the Chairman has his way.
The fears we expressed
recently are beginning to be confirmed in slow motion by the Chairman of the IEC
who is illegally occupying the seat. In
characteristic style, with the full endorsement of the membership of a rubber
stamp Commission, Chairman Carayol is slowing but surely unveiling the
Electoral (Amendment) Act that we described in our previous blog post as “posing
a great threat to the electoral landscape”, because it is a bad and punitive
law designed to limit opposition access to the electoral process by excessive
and unrealistic entry fees and other draconian measures.
Can the IEC dictate to
political parties what should be in their Constitutions of Party Manifestos?
Can the IEC demand audited accounts of political parties that will reveal their
sources of financing without the requirement having a damping effect by scaring
off potential donors to the opposition? Do we know all that's in the law? We venture to respond in the negative. The provisions that made it into the Election (Amendment) Act 2015 are there for a
reason and it is time the Opposition start asking the right questions and to take - head on - a Commission that is callously leading the
Gambia down the path to absolute electoral chaos that will inevitable threaten
the peace and stability of The Gambia. All
opposition parties must speak up now or forever hold their peace.
