By: Dawda Baldeh
Ousainou Darboe Esq, leader of the main opposition United Democratic Party (UDP), has said Senegalese nationals alleged to have obtained Gambian voters’ identification cards will not vote in the local government election scheduled for April and May 2023.
The UDP leader made these remarks yesterday in an interview with Camaraba Official.
“We will make sure that none of those Senegalese with Gambian voters’ cards vote in the coming local government election,” Darboe said while reacting to a claim made by a Senegalese lawmaker that his people in the border are in possession of Gambian national documents.
The UDP leader added that the claims of the Senegalese lawmaker are not opinions but facts. “The gentleman did not express an opinion. He stated facts. He mentioned the names of villages.”
According to Darboe, the revelations made by the Senegalese lawmaker are evidence of UDP’s rejection of the 2021 presidential election results.
“The Gambian government headed by Adama Barrow is illegitimate. The Senegalese National Assembly Member confirmed the fraud that Ebrima Sillah debunked in an interview with a group of journalists.
What they have done is now gradually being unearthed and known to the people. And this is why we don’t recognize Barrow as the president,” he noted.
The Senegalese lawmaker, Hon. Sisse in a viral video last week told the Senegalese President Macky Sall that he lives around the border where a lot of people in his constituency obtained Gambian voter ID Cards.
“What can be a better proof of electoral malpractice? If the Supreme Court had allowed us to present our evidence, all these would have come out.
But here we are told by a Senegalese lawmaker that Senegalese are in possession of Gambian national documents. They were acquired during voter registration,” Darboe said.
He added that their election petition was struck out based on technicalities, a decision he said shocked the party at the time.
The UDP leader emphasized that “the election Barrow is claiming to have won was fraudulent.”
He noted that with such revelations, Independent Electoral Commission officials should be thinking of resigning.
