There are a few occurances that happened in Faji Kunda around election time that no one seems to be raising. They are: The lose of communications between IEC and everyone else for about two hours on the night of 18th between about 8.30pm and 10.30pm. The extensive power cut covering the same time period. The celebrating of Jammeh's supporters who were chanting he had won from about midnight. Prior to this they had been very quiet and didn't seem to expecting victory. I don't live in Gambia but I was there for a month leading up to the election. I left on the 20th. Due to malaria I was unable to post this report until now. I will list events that concern me (and the friends I was visiting). I spent my time in Faji Kunda and URD. Most of the people I visited were farmers or the children of such. A fair number were PDOIS supporters, but some were UDP and the odd one NRP, and one actually APRC, or their family was. Most of the younger ones were educated to at least primary 6 level,but few of the old ones had any schooling. I travelled between Basse and Serre Kunda a couple times proir to the elections by van. Almost every van I travelled on, most of the passengers were very anti jammeh. I didn't start any political conversation, but when I was asked what I thought of Gambia, I just replied that the people I met were good, but roads and poeple's living standards seemed worse than a few years earlier. The usual response was an anti-jammeh ditribe and an assurence that he would be gone come the election. Only once did any passenger speak in support of President Jammeh. I know this is not a very representative way of polling the mood the electrolate. I could see no reason why people would be so open about expect ing a change of president if there was not a likely chance of such. I was also surprised that they were so open to a stranger. Certainly my friends were all predicting an opposition win but as they were pro-opposition, I tried to get others views. I did spend a day in a compound of APRC supporters. They knew that I had not been impressed by the situation in The Gambia, and were will to concede that APRC was not an ideal government. Their concerns with the opposition centred around the alliance of UDP with PPP, from one or two I had the feeling that if the PPP had not been in the equation they may have voted UDP. They were not sure of an APRC victory. Admittedly they did have other APRC supporters dropping all the time predicting a 90% win for Jammeh. I did not feel it was a good time to raise issues such as foreign loans, etc with such die hard supporters. When I left this compound there were a large number of green f lags on nieghbouring compounds. I saw mostly green flags on buildings fronting main roads in sere Kunda and surrounding districts. Especially on Police posts, gamtel offices and other government or semi government buildings. I also saw open backed 4 wheel drives with soldiers standing in the back with what I thought to be very large mounted machine guns, these could have been anti aircraft guns that other postings reffered to, but the noozles were definitely being pointed horizontally and swung from side to side. They scared the hell out of me, and other people around me didnot look too relaxed. From about the 10th or 11th there was definite feeling of unease in Faji Kunda. On one night we could hear gun fire but could never find out what had happened. This was the night after an UDP supportter had been killed. The compound I was staying at sent all their children back to the bush, we rented a van and loaded it up with about twenty children and a couple of women to supervise. I think other compounds did the same because after the 13th I saw many fewer children in the nearby streets. For the week prior to the election people seemed very tense. There was nothing specific, just rumours flying around. There was nothing on the TV or radio that seemed to reassure people. The electricity supply was very erratic so that was not a good source of imformation. But when we did have power I noticed that there was not equal coverage. Certainly every party got about 5 or 10 minutes a night but President Jammeh's rally or journey through Gambia got half an hour every night and the hype surroundding him was incredible. Looking at the coverage as an outsider it was overwhelmimg pro-Jammeh. Where I live no government would stand a chance of getting away with such a bias coverage. On election day Faji Kunda was very, very quiet. It was like walking through a gho st town. Usually people are sitting outside the compounds, kids are playing in street and people are everywhere. Except at the polling areas there was noone around. The polling booths were quiet, with people standing waiting to vote, no conversation just waiting. The people I stayed with left to vote at 7am and returned at 1pm. They waited about 5 and half hours to vote. The polls closed at 4pm but the people in the queues at 4pm were permitted to vote so the actual voting finished about 6pm or later in Faji Kunda. We settled down to a night of election results watching. Surprisingly we had power all day until about 9pm. The TV coverage started off very well, for once GRTS should be given credit for a professional piece of work. There were representatives from all the parties bar one. There were political commentors who seemed to be uncensored. The coverage started off with summarising events and listing the parties and descr ibing how the coverage would proceed. About 8.30pm the first two lots of results were announced. Then we were told more were coming shortly. Then technical difficulties were announced and GRTS switched to a music program. 15 minutes or so later, TV returned to election mode and said that all communicatios with IEC had been lost. Then the power went off. We switched to radio only to get the same message or music. From who we could call it seemed that power was out in all of Sere Kunda and Banjul, but I could not be definite. At about 11pm power returned, but still only music on the TV. Shortly after communications were restored and results begun coming thru. I'm going o have to stop now. I will continue later if anyones interested. If you feel I'm rambling I'll shut up. But to summarise, I don't believe the results. Somehow a rort was pulled. I'm very suss about the power cut and lost of communications. Anyone know <<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>> To view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] <<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>//\\<<//\\>>