BANJUL (Reuters) – Gambians will cast their votes on Saturday utilizing a novel voting system, marbles dropped in every candidate’s poll drum, in a tightly fought presidential election that may test stability and democratic progress in the tiny West African nation.
Nearly 1 million folks out of a 2.5 million inhabitants are registered to vote in mainland Africa’s smallest nation. Turnout is anticipated to be excessive, based on election officers.
“The variety of folks registered are excess of the earlier election,” stated Mamadou A. Barry, a returning officer on the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC).
Barry stated Gambians understood the method of utilizing glass marbles to vote. The system was launched in the Nineteen Sixties to keep away from spoilt ballots in a nation with a excessive illiteracy price.
“Each voter will get a marble,” he stated. “I believe it’s clear and honest.”
Results are anticipated by Sunday underneath the easy majority system.
It is Gambia’s first democratic election since former President Yahya Jammeh was voted out of workplace in 2016.
Jammeh, who was defeated by an opposition coalition that backed present President Adama Barrow, fled to Equatorial Guinea in 2017 after refusing to just accept defeat.
Barrow, a 56-year-old former safety guard and property developer, will face 5 challengers together with his former political mentor, Ousainou Darboe, 73.
The different candidates in the tight race embrace Essa Mbye Faal, who served as chief counsel of Gambia’s Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission that chronicled the abuses of Jammeh’s rule and Mama Kandeh, who got here third in the 2016 polls and is at present backed by Jammeh.
On Thursday evening because the marketing campaign got here to an in depth, a whole lot of jubilant Barrow supporters gathered in downtown Banjul for a remaining rally, hoping that one other Barrow time period would safe stability as Gambia seeks to firmly put behind it 22 years of Jammeh’s autocratic rule.
Private safety guard Fodey Kassama, 33, stated that underneath Barrow Gambians have been capable of communicate freely with out worry of arrest, whereas the economic system has improved.
“In 2016, I used to be not incomes a lot. Rather less than $50, now I’m incomes as much as $200 per 30 days,” he stated.
Barrow, who has made lavish guarantees all through the marketing campaign, instructed the jubilant crowd he deliberate to introduce medical insurance that may grant entry to therapy with out upfront funds.
His critics, nevertheless, say Barrow has damaged his guarantees, pointing to how he backtracked on a pledge to serve solely three years after successful in 2016. Barrow has argued the structure requires him to serve out a full five-year time period.
Barrow’s predominant challenger, Darboe, instructed supporters on Thursday that he supposed to work in the direction of reconciling Gambians and giving justice to those that suffered underneath Jammeh’s rule.
(Reporting by Pap Saine and Bate Felix; Editing by Sandra Maler)
