FOROYAA NEWSPAPER:


Editorial:  AN IMPOSSIBLE TASK FOR THE INDEPENDENT ELECTORAL COMMISSION By Publisher on 13-06-11 (240 reads) News by the same author 

FOUR BUSES FROM MAURITANIA DESCEND ON TALLINDING BANTABA
It has been long since Gambians in the Diaspora raised questions why the Independent Electoral Commission has not made arrangement for them to be registered at their places of residence abroad. The Chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission had always been swift to answer them by indicating financial and logistical problems.

On Friday, 9th June 2011 the problem of the registration of Gambians from the Diaspora became a practical one that the IEC could not ignore. What do we mean?

Foroyaa received information that four buses with Mauritanian number plates have crossed into Senegal and were heading to the Gambia. The buses were trailed to Barra. The buses from Mauritania did cross over and were finally trailed to the registration centre situated at Tallinding Bantaba.
The Registering officer and their supervisors made it categorically clear that a person should not be registered where one is not resident or was not born. The claimants were told that those who were born in Tallinding could register and those who were not would have to wait for further instruction.

Some officials of the APRC, whose names we will withhold since they eventually decided to listen to wise counsel and stop interfering with the process and castigating the principled IEC staff of being opposition agents, initially did insist that the claimants must all be registered since they had National documents. The IEC staff refused to be dictated to. Pandemonium developed as different party representatives descended on the ground to check each other. After heated exchanges, tete a tete discussions started between some of the representatives. Eventually, the IEC sent its Chief Electoral Officer to handle the matter. He reiterated that the law permits people to register where they reside or where they are born. To free the registering officers to carry on their work one of the party representatives proposed for all the party representatives, the Chief Electoral Officer and the Gambian High Commissioner in Mauritania to move away from the registration
 centre to discuss matters. The Foroyaa reporter saw the Chief Electoral Ofiicer, Robert Anthony Secka, The Gambian High Commissioner in Mauritania, Rtd. Lt Colonel Momodou Badjie, Mayor of KMC, Yankuba Colley, Halifa Sallah, Secretary General of PDOIS and Momodou Sarr of the UDP discussing.

It is reliably learned that the Chief Electoral Officer recalled the provision of the law, defended the decision of their staff and indicated that those from Tallinding would register in Tallinding and those from other places with national documents would be taken to other registration centres. The High Commissioner is reported to have expressed that if the rule was clear to them before they came the chaos that developed would have been avoided. The political representatives were said to have tried to contain each other so that none would dictate what the Chief Electoral Officer of the IEC considered to be appropriate.
In our view, the IEC has been given an impossible task. The Law is its guide. Section 12 subsection 1c states that “a person shall be entitled to have his or her name registered on a register of voters in a constituency if he is resident or was born in that constituency.”

The IEC could exercise discretion where the law is silent. Hence even if the IEC accepts to register those who are not born or resident in a constituency there names could be deleted by a revising court on the basis of failing to meet residential qualifications. What the Gambia High Commission in Mauritania should have done is to get the IEC to sensitize all the Gambians to rush to their place of origin and get registered which should not take more than three days regardless of where one originated from in the Gambia.

The real solution is to ensure the registration of Gambians abroad. It is unfair to have Gambians come all the way and have difficulty in getting registered because of the technicality of the law



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