Mr. Manneh, thanks once again for the succinct answers you gave to important
questions posed to you. May I suggest that one does NOT need to have our
electoral laws in ones vicinity in order to decipher that Roberts violated
the electoral laws by rescinding (at the eleventh hour) a decision the IEC
made the previous day?

See, APRC began a long time ago to stuff the electoral registers with
Senegalese (Casamance) citizens sympathetic to Yaya. Even before the
registration exercise started, we saw reports that Gambian identity cards
were being issued to non-Gambians by the officials at KMC and the Interior
ministry. These shenanigans were supposed to be taken care of during the
registration process. In other words, Opposition stalwarts were supposed to
ensure that even if non-Gambians present Gambian identity documents, they
would NOT be allowed to register. If the Opposition failed in this endeavor;
i.e. preventing these foreigners from registering, the next line of attack
was to vigorously ‘challenge’ the rolls in the magistrate courts. The
Opposition implemented both tactics.

It was after these ‘challenges’ that we were supposed to have THE LIST.
Anybody whose name was NOT on that list should NOT have been allowed to
vote. Before the commencement of the ‘challenge period’ the List should have
been publicized for public scrutiny. During that period if someone that
legitimately had a voter’s card did NOT see his/her name on the List, it was
at that period that that person should have been added to the List by the
magistrate court’s order.

Deciding to disregard The List and instead going with a ‘counter-foil’ that
was NOT authenticated through the ‘challenge process’, makes a mockery of
that process. That is why I said that you do NOT need the laws before you in
order to see here that Roberts was engaged in some hanky-panky with the
APRC. If the ‘draft’ list of the IEC was the final word, then they did NOT
need to publicize the list before the ‘challenge’ period, and there was also
no need for magistrates to waste their time and hear challenges. I
understand that one Alliance supporter even lost his life while partaking in
events dealing with these challenges in Brikama. The ‘challenge’ was a life
and dead issue.

The Opposition raised these issues with the IEC and the international
observers. When Femi Peters succeeded in showing the whole world that there
were indeed Senegalese citizens with Gambian voter’s cards, Roberts had no
choice but to RESTATE the law at a press conference, saying that people that
were NOT on THE LIST would NOT be allowed to vote. Clearly, APRC was NOT
happy with this because that would have meant that tens of thousands of
their supporters would be disenfranchised (and rightly so because they were
foreigners). There is NO doubt in my mind that without those Casamance
people voting for Yaya, we would have had a different election result. At
the very least we are looking at a second round of voting.

Remember that here we are NOT just talking about the discrepancies between
the ‘counter-foil’ and The List. I am contending that even on The List,
there are thousands of foreigners that magistrates (friends of Baabaa Jobe)
refused to expunge from The List. As I said yesterday, the issue whether
Roberts should have been allowed to change the decision he made at the press
conference by allowing a restatement of the law, is now moot. That battle is
over. But the WAR continues. As part of the WAR though, we should avoid
giving Gabriel Roberts credit that is NOT due to him. I am NOT saying that
you are doing that. All I am saying is that people should NOT be equivocal
in their condemnation of the despicable job Roberts did in this election.
With all due respect to you, the issue is NOT about what chanced in previous
elections, but what went wrong in this one. What we know is that dead at
night when most Gambians were sleeping, APRC and Roberts connived to change
our electoral laws to allow foreigners to vote in our elections. No APRC
stalwart can claim that Roberts did not change his mind at the eleventh
hour. No APRC stalwart can also tell us that foreigners did NOT vote in our
elections.
KB



>From: Lamin Manneh PF <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: ATT.Malanding -Questions on Gambia's election law
>Date: Tue, 23 Oct 2001 12:08:59 -0700
>


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