Honourable Doudou Jah of APRC has voiced his opinion about the ongoing voter registration facilitated by the independent electoral commission (IEC) which is expected to last for about 45 days.

Speaking to Kairaba News Network, the outspoken politician expressed dismay over the behaviour of certain political party agents that are present at some voter registration centers to question the legality of the documents possessed by individuals that seek voters’ cards whilst others attempt to take the serial numbers on voters’ cards of registered persons.   He added that this behaviour is extreme, he stressed that the political party agents or representatives     are not mandated to do so.

“Another challenge is most of the people not only the IEC staff but the Gambians don’t even know who is qualify to be a Gambian, some thought because of your tribe, name, colour or where you were born which served as a base to certain people being denied their citizenry rights for not being allowed to register based on judgements that are not accurate” he stated.

Honourable Jah, went further to say that, the printers at some registration centres are experiencing problems as they seem not to be  temperature friendly especially when it is warm  in certain areas of the country. He added that some of the officials operating the system which includes printers, computers and its related equipment seem not to be IT inclined which posed difficulty to the entire process.

He lamented on the time constraint and pace on which the registration is moving  considering the number of people that need to register for the elections and he  urged  for a possible extension of the registration period in order to cover most of the intended voters in the country.

 

By Alkali Cham