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Gambia set for legislative polls

The ruling Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC) party has already presented its list of candidates. Surprisingly, APRC dropped 25 candidates, including the majority leader in parliament, Mr Churchill Falai Baldeh.

However, the twice-elected majority leader said he would remain loyal to the party and its leader, Gambian President Yahya Jammeh.

There are reported shackles within the ruling party, as some militants expressed fury over what they called the party's "biased selection of candidates". They accused the selection committee of approving the candidature of some people who only recently had joined party ranks.

As a result, some furious militants preferred to break away from the party so as to contest on independent tickets.

Reacting to the development, the APRC's national mobiliser, Yankuba Touray, said his party chose candidates after they had passed a series of tests. "After their assessments, their files were sent to the party leader for endorsement," he said, predicting a landslide victory for his party.

"We are not threatened by the opposition who are in disarray. We are set for the polls because we have done our homework in a perfect manner."

Again, the opposition has disagreed to strike an alliance, despite calls by the public to do so. Some weeks back, the leader of the National Alliance for Democracy and Development (NADD), Halifa Sallah, asked for a tactical alliance by the opposition. But the main opposition United Democratic Party Alliance (UDP) later issued a statement saying it would contest on its own in all the 48 constituencies in the country.

NADD and UDP Alliance scored 6 and 26 percents at the September polls respectively. After its calls for an alliance fell on deaf ears, NADD announced to contest in 17 constituencies. The UDP Alliance is yet to announce its list of candidates but according to electoral officials, 4 January is set as the deadline for all parties to announce their list of candidates.

According to an electoral decree, contesting candidates must be resident in their constituency for six months before elections and also get the nomination of at least 300 voters. They are also mandated to deposit US$ 150. This amount will not be returned in case a candidate polls below one third of the votes cast.

During the first republic, presidential and parliamentary elections were held side by side but this trend had changed since 1996, two years after current President Jammeh took power in a military coup.

The Gambian constitution in theory has vested sweeping powers to parliamentarians. Apart from enjoying parliamentary immunity, parliamentarians are also empowered to impeach the President through a two third majority.

The Gambian opposition however so far has failed to even win a simple majority in legislative elections since the 1994 coup, despite President Jammeh's unpopularity. Fragmentation, infighting and personal ambitions have hindered a united and credible challenge to the ruling party, in addition to voters' intimidation.

Despite popular call for a united opposition front, this will not materialise in 2007 either. The leader of NADD, Halifa Sallah said his party decided to put in more candidates simply because "our strategy is to make sure that a one-party state does not exist in the country and also to ensure that parliament serves as an effective and efficient oversight institution that can scrutinise, criticise policies and programmes of the government".