Tomorrow Is D-Day

Thursday the 24 January 2008 is the local Election Day in the Gambia . A number of 377,857 registered voters out of 670,336 will be deciding who will be in charge of their local governments. Campaigning is halted for today after two weeks intensive campaigning. Two mayoral positions are being keenly contested for, one in Banjul and the other in Kanifing municipality. In the two mayoral positions, opposition UDP/NRP is challenging the ruling APRC party.

114 wards across the country are open to contest but only 59 will be contested as the 55 are declared UN opposed, this gives an early lead to the ruling APRC. Yankuba Colley an APRC candidate is contesting for the KMC, whiles Momodou Danso is running on the UDP/NRP tickets. In Banjul the capital city Samba Faal is running on an APRC ticket whiles Femi Peters is on an UDP/NRP ticket.

In a short remarks on the occasion, the chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) Mustapha Carayol said in a bid to see a free and fair local government elections the IEC has accredited 266 observers to monitor the whole process of the elections. Out of these numbers 24 are international observers.
However in the run ups to the local government elections, the two independent candidates have complain of UN fair treatment at the hands of the ruling APRC.The Independent candidate for Marakissa Ward have complained of being asked by the police to report for questioning while the Independent candidate for Sabach Ward complained of APRC engaging themselves in a village at a time when he should be having his meeting there.