Gambia’s presidential election campaigning ends today
By Alhagie Jobe
Midnight GMT tonight, Tuesday, 29th November, 2016 is the deadline for political campaigns in the Gambia ahead of Thursday’s decisive vote in the country.
Gambia heads to the polls on Thursday, December 1st with incumbent President Yahya Jammeh seeking for a fifth term.
Meanwhile, the build up to Election Day has been very engaging and interactive both in the open and in close doors. In the last day of campaigning, Mr Jammeh and his APRC party wrapped up their campaign rallies in the capital, Banjul, while Mama Kandeh and his GDC party where in Youna and the coalition started their day at Buffer Zone to Serrekunda and to Bakau.
Incumbent President Jammeh is facing perhaps the biggest political challenge during his 22 years in power. He is been challenged by Adama Barow who is leading a revitalized and united opposition coalition and Mama Kandeh of the Gambia Democratic Congress who was a former National Assembly member of the ruling Jammeh APRC party.
This week’s poll comes at the end of a turbulent year that has given hope to opposition supporters that change may be on the horizon.
“I am the best president that Gambians will ever get,” Mr Jammeh, who once said he would rule his country for “a billion years”, said on Tuesday. “My presidency and power are in the hands of Allah and only Allah can take it from me.”
He also said he will “never pardon” opposition activists who are in prison.
The opposition is banking hopes on a failed Yahya Jammeh presidency to get them power. They have held mammoth rallies buoyed by an ‘unprecedented’ groundswell of support, hoping to put an end to the iron-fisted rule of President Yahya Jammeh.
“My chances are high to beat the incumbent president Jammeh with a landslide victory. A new Gambia will be born December first,” Coalition standard bearer Adama Barrow told reporters on Tuesday. He has promised to rule only for a three-year transition period.
The third candidate, Mamma Kandeh of the GDC and a former Jammeh ally and Member of Parliament who has since formed his own political party – could also drain votes from the opposition under Gambia’s single-round election system.
Yahya Jammeh, 51, seized power as a young army officer in a 1994 coup and has maintained his control over Gambia in four subsequent elections despite growing international concern over his government’s deteriorating human rights record.
Long known for his eccentricities, including a snap decision last year to declare Gambia an Islamic republic, international attention has increasingly focused on the repressive nature of his rule.
Mr Jammeh has rejected outside criticism and last month announced Gambia’s withdrawal from the International Criminal Court, a body he says is biased against Africans and which his spokesman dubbed the “International Caucasian Court”.
In April, small protests in Banjul calling for electoral reform led to dozens of arrests, including that of the leader of the main opposition UDP party, Mr Ousainu Darboe.
Two other UDP members have since died in custody while others remain in jail, but the almost unheard of act of defiance has helped galvanize Jammeh’s opponents.
Gambians will now decide on Thursday, December 1st, who goes to the State House.
‘Wirri Wirri’ actors in Gambia for wedding, attends Jammeh’s campaign rally
By Alhagie Jobe
Actors of the famous Senegalese widely watched Tele-serie call ‘Wirri Wirri’ airing on TFM TV station who are in The Gambia for a wedding ceremony are reported to have attended one of the meetings of Dictator Jammeh on his campaign trail.
Images obtained by this medium clearly shows the Senegalese actors attending one of Jammeh’s meetings with one Gueye wearing APRC T-Shirt and posed in picture with APRC supporters while Cheikh Ndiaye alias Jojo and Aziz Niane alias Cheikhouna also posed in pictures with other APRC supporters.
According to sources, the Senegalese actors actually accompanied their colleague Aziz Niane alias Cheikhouna to Bakau, The Gambia, for a wedding. Sources said one Police officer met them, appreciate and admired them and took them to the meeting of President Jammeh where they where given APRC T-Shirts.
Few days ago, Nigerian Nollywood actresses where also spotted in The Gambia and supporting Dictator Yahya Jammeh’s campaign trail which caused global condemnation for them to support such a brutal dictator.
Senegalese wrestlers, musicians and actors have ever been accused of scavenging on Gambia’s meagre resources by frequently visiting the country and meeting President Jammeh privately and even publicly. Each time they went to The Gambia as a group like they are on the campaign trail, it has been at President Jammeh’s invitation and at the expenses of Gambia’s tax payer’s monies.
It could be recalled that in 2015, President Jammeh gave two expenses cars and huge cash amount to famous Senegalese wrestler Emeu Sene which caused outrage in the country.
How President Jammeh will steal the election
By Gibril Saine in London
In any election, more-so on the African continent, one of the lesser known TRICKS and loopholes used by dictators and rogue leaders alike in a desperate effort to rig elections has been that of too-many-voters in relation to the population. Fellow Gambians – watch out for the turnout figures announced by the IEC as soon as the polls closed – these can be a major giveaway.
Nowhere will a country register 90% to a near 100% turnout. That is just a facade. And a plain lie. The disparity in reported turnout figures in area-codes (sic) has to be carefully monitored, with the potential for fraudulence. For example, certain polling stations in APRC strongholds or the president’s ethnic (Jola) districts shall report a near 100% turnout, whilst most other areas, opposition strongholds – a far inferior rate. President Jammeh has the IEC in his pocket, and certainly will use the inept electoral commission once again to this effect in a desperate attempt to cling onto power.
Another grey-area to keep an eye on is the numbers of invalid votes ascribed to the opposition coalition. Even in countries with low literacy rates such as the Ivory Coast, or Senegal, for instance, this isn’t normally above two to three percentage points. And with the growing excitement and high-expectations amongst the voting public for the opposition-alliance – Keep an eye on the number of rejected votes Momar Njie and his electoral commission throw at Honorable Adama Barrow, leading the coalition.
In a traditional democracy in which electoral norms and rules of fair-play are upheld firmest, the conventional wisdom is that electoral officials must go through a certain procedure as soon as polls are closed and before opening the boxes. This process is known as the reconciliation of ballots. After they have counted how many ballot papers they received in the morning, they then need to count how many are left, and how many, if any, were torn or otherwise spoiled and had to be put aside. This, then, informs them how many papers should be in the box. It should also match the number of names checked off on the register. The total votes must not exceed the ballot papers issued – Any disparity in this signals corruption and vote rigging.
The Chairman to the Independent Electoral Commission, Mr MomarNjie – The first task when a box is opened is to count the number of papers inside, this is done prior to counting the votes cast for the various candidates. And if there are more papers in the boxes than were issued by the polling staff, it is highly likely that someone has been ‘stuffing’ – meaning secretly filling the boxes with Jammeh’s papers. That will be a clear breach of the electoral codes and best practices punishable by imprisonment. Again, such a scandal is an affront to the constitution, and all other International norms governing fair elections. Any such discrepancy is enough reason to cancel the result and arrange a re-run, where the offending candidate and party, Yahya Jammeh and his APRC, will be barred and to face trial.
Results don’t match – It is now standard practice to allow party agents, observers and sometimes even voters to watch the counting process and take photographs of the results sheet with their smart phones. They then have proof of the genuine results from their area – just in case the ones announced later by the electoral commission don’t match. It has clearly taken crooked politicians some time to catch up with the fact that people will now know if they change the results. I encourage the opposition coalition to prepare for this, and to exploit such advances in social media in helping to minimize this nightmarish scenario. Changing a government in Africa is never easy, more so a manifestly corrupt and an entrenched dictatorship Gambians are subjected to:
Interestingly, however, another trick to be-aware and suspicious of is the – Delay in announcing results. Election commissions, particularly in Africa, can appear to take an inordinately long time to publish official results. In states enduring brutal regimes, such as The Gambia, the electoral commission is often coerced, and bribed, into colluding with the incumbent every step of the counting process.As questions and uncertainty remain over the IEC, One can predict with certainty that President Jammeh will be fed the tailored results before anyone else. The UN special envoy and that of the African Union respectively have raised concern as tensions increase.
Finally, across Africa, the fact that aspiring candidates equate election victory as a lottery ticket to wealth and riches has hindered progress. Corruption remain a cancer in our society,with politicians engaging in backhand deals continuously re-positioning themselves closer and closer to the nation’s bank accounts.Campaign promises and the needs of ordinary voters are often discarded in the bin as soon as they assume office –Well the Gambian people have a chance to correct that waving bye to maladministration come December, 1st, 2016.
Given an era of enlightenment and instant connection worldwide, the IEC must be reminded that delays will not be accepted, fueling rumors of ‘foul-play’. This will increase tensions within the country and concern globally as the world awaits News. My hope is that the Electoral commission and President Jammeh will take heed – Because the Gambian people are ready to act – anticipating a solid victory in this defining election.
As Yahya Jammeh wilts and wobbles under pressure, he begins reformulating the same old messages from his baskets of deplorable
By Habib ( A Concerned Gambian)
Yahya Jammeh have been very busy reformulating his old messages of intolerance on the campaign trail— as he wilts and wobble under pressure, seeing the grass-roots pressure mounted by the opposition. Simply said, it seems a sure bet that his messages will be read by generations as one of his low-water marks in history by any scholarly measure. These historical events are captured in multiple episodes of his own docudrama, shrugging off each and every boastful statement made from 1994 — used as a pretense to justify his illegal coupe d’état. It remains to be seen how Yahya Jammeh could win the greatest political challenge of his regime— fairly.
Of course, for his own interests, he commingled and chased all the deplorable ideological regressive darkness of some generations past history back into 21st century— aggressively implemented them as policies to suppressed Gambian and use them to drive the basic incoherence of his world-view. This ideology is also the deadly jolting poison— he used to tear up Gambia to remain in the doldrums, established a solid footing of leviathan dictatorship and build a wall against democracy. In light of that belief, he efficiently dismantle our values, threw out the best of it, replaced them with a disturbed culture— which now stands to be greatest threat of our time and indeed the greatest barriers to Gambia’s prosperity.
Not surprisingly, his speeches highlighted throughout the campaign issues signals— somewhere between a mixed confused mind and scary prospects for the future of the country. After all, his basic policy instincts tend to be wrong — because it undermines any attempt to restore upward mobility for our country and its citizens. In the midst of this, By themselves, there’s no chance that those steps will restore prosperity to so many Gambians. Among several incendiary takeaways from, many can kiss goodbye to the Gambian dream— if he cheats his way back to state house. In other words, he spent over 22 year stirring up divisions, cheering up resentments, rewarding torture of women, with his propensity to be an authoritarian and expanding his authority far beyond the restrictions established by law or even our moral values.
Suffice it to say, It took nearly two decades for Yahya Jammeh’s vision of dictatorship to become visible to all Gambians those who cared to look today. It is not fair that knowing full well that Gambians do not want his leadership anymore, he is busy lighting a fire of discourse among our citizens.
Indeed, he always uses his chameleon character to start a controversy in a small way, then mushroom it around communities and later grows it out of control across the country. Having said that, his pathetic foreign policy agenda— prove remotely to be effective because no one could understand it and it is down-the-line not too far-fetched for hate, jealousy and ill will. In addition, this is why everything has to do— be in secret, holding meetings outside State House headquarters in order to avoid leaving a record of their conversations.
Yet, they only time he looks down on his nose to see Gambians as human being is — when he beings his burdened call for societal generosity. That’s the same footsteps— the first lady follows too. They will embezzle all the foreign aid provided to Gambians and then leave us only with bread crumbs to work with. The duo couple have only make matters worse for themselves— by blatantly disregarding the will of their own citizens to gracefully compete their exit from Gambia.
Additionally, many other questions remain: There is no common ground in his policies— because they do not embrace things like — including Gambia in world communities; brainstorming on what resources to expend; what problems to prioritize; how to make good use of technological skills to expand our education system; relaxing regulation that causes unexpected setback of our nation and reducing taxation of small enterprise of struggling vendors in the market places. These populist economic interests had been ignored by the regime.
But beyond that, they have nothing to offer except making Gambians run away from their own shadows. The regime has been more effective: Chasing around children to sacrifice for Yaya Jammeh, ongoing radicalization of our citizens, fear-mongering, raiding workplaces to jail Gambians who fell out with dictator, exiling Gambians and slowing down internet speed to deny access to reality of Gambia under dictatorship.
The strangest irony of all this is— Yahya Jammeh continuous slander of an entire culture. This issue has reached a disproportionate level of critical mass that should be called out by our own community and religious leaders. Why are the religious elders of the communities and imams, silent on an issue that affects us more directly than any other? We are all aware by now that the regime is deriding minorities with private tribal chauvinism messages, pandering to various minority groups for ethnic solidarity and prodding Cassamance residence to various locations throughout the country to vote in lockstep with them. The logic of such a formula should not be allowed to be used— to divide us and peach us against each other to give them the edge in this election.
These are the same old messages they reformulate every election cycle. It’s a shame that old grown up folks, have nothing to do except to flocked the Team Gambia Coalition with misleading statements— because their messages isn’t warming up the Gambians after all. These people are protectionist of the status quo for their own shellfish interest. We have been handed a rare opportunity to make changes we all believe in and end this nightmare dictatorship regime. Now it’s up to the rest of us to stand up for our country.
But thus far, the Gambians have learned a bitter lesson of dictatorship and the deplorable moments in 2016. Our country has been transformed by the enormity of the issues of dark events that happened in 2016. At this moment, Gambia is in turmoil. Yahya Jammeh has shattered the aspirational myth of being among the best our nation has to offer in—character, integrity, intellect, courage and honest individual. Additionally, he is indeed unfit to serve as president of the Gambia again and ever. Therefore, we must honestly ask ourselves—where does Gambian go from here if Yahya Jammeh stays after December 2nd?
Let’s lift our gaze to zoom in our place in a future that have Yahya Jammeh be in and think about what anyone can achieve by empowering this regime? Huh! That’s what I thought. I suggest that each of us, regardless of whom we are— in terms of status, understand the setback that it will meant for Gambia and our dreams. I hope and pray, for our nation’s sake, that every Gambian apologetically put their vote in the grey ballot box— that belongs to ADAM BARROW—for Team Gambia Coalition.
Lastly, another non- entity in Bakau— by the name of Rambo— a blow hard politician, have the temerity to put forward the simple premise that anyone who votes for the opposition— will be arrested after the elections. By way of background— be it his education or moral standing, this men isn’t to be envied or even worth trusting their fate with. The man is just protecting his immediate economic “battle” victory he just won few moons ago.
Such statements are what allowed him to jump to the head of the line past to his position. To say the least, his appointment to the regime mouth piece is highly contentious. He in effect, validated the policy position of Yahya Jammeh’s rule of fear and keeping alive the castigation of elderly weak women —they love to abuse. Gambians! Rambo’s message is just a fantasy as part of an effort to stave off potential catastrophic embarrassment of APRC shellacking come December 1st.
The IEC’s to do their job for a least once. The question we have to ask is —who wants to vote for the regime that sees only the opposition (our own families) as derision and unpatriotic. It is my heartfelt hope that our country will wake up in time— to recognize that this regime cannot remain in place for Gambia to prosper in any way or form. No other consideration should drive Gambians to the polls except for change.
We are witnessing the implosion of the regime in real time— marching towards the dustbins of history. During these unprecedented political times, Injustice toward one particular group or community is an injustice toward all. I applaud the Gambians who will do right thing for our country’s shake. We could all use a break on December 2nd from an excruciatingly long journey of dictatorship.
Kuta Turtle Jadama
Meet Turtle Jadama, one of dictator Jammeh’s supporters.
Nollywood celebrities in Gambia with Yahya Jammeh on campaign trail
By Alhagie Jobe
Prominent Nollywood celebrities have been flown into The Gambia by incumbent President Yahya Jammeh to support his campaign for re-election.
Among the group of celebrities is Angela Okorie, a model, producer, singer and actor who posted a video on her Facebook Fan Page saying she is in The Gambia with colleagues on the president’s tour.
She said “On the Gambia presidential tour with my colleaques, for His Excellency Sheikh Prof.Dr.Alhaji.Yaya AJJ Jammeh Babilimansa” he is the man of the people trust me”.
Nollywood actors have ever been accused of scavenging on Gambia’s meagre resources by frequently visiting Gambia and meeting Mr Jammeh privately and publicly.
In October 2015, President Jammeh presented plots of land to some top Nollywood stars and Ghanaian actress Jackie Appiah. The beneficiaries of the land gifts included Francis Duru, Segun Arinze, Monalisa Chinda, Patience Ozokwor, Eucharia Anunobi, Ejike Asiegbu,Tony Umez, Ngozi Ezeonu, Kanayo O. Kanayo, Chika Okpala (Zebrudaya), Harry B. Anyanwu, Chinedu Ikedieze and Osita Iheme, Rukiat Masud and Ghanaian sultry actress, Jackie Appiah.
Vice President Isatou Njie-Saidy represented the lands to the actors at a presentation ceremony held at the presidential palace in Banjul.
The land gifts later generated a lot of reactions in Nigeria and The Gambia.
Credible sources close to The Presidency say each time Nollywood actors travel to The Gambia, dictator Jammeh pays for the entire trip at the expense of Gambian tax payers. Before the Nigerians, celebrities from Senegal, Mali and other parts of the world were frequent in The Gambia over the past years.