Lawyer Assan Martin one of the aspiring Mayors for the Kanifing Mayoral elections slated for April, has alleged that there are some political players on the ground—particularly those said to be close to the coalition led government, who are allegedly engaged in voter inducement and buying of voters’ cards ahead of the polls. Martin said in some localities voters’ cards are being bought from voters for D300 dalasis per card. He was speaking on Sunday, during Freedom Radio Gambia’s Leral show.
Mr. Martin wants to run as an independent, but he said he is not closing his doors to other contenders, who shared the same goals and objectives with him as far as the development of the municipality is concerned.
According to the Gambian human rights lawyer, some of the prospective mayoral candidates have started pumping money, rice and other inducements to the KMC electorate.
“There is an ongoing voter inducement and vote buying taking place in the KMC. There are some aspiring Mayors, who are in the business of buying voters cards from some of the electorate. I was told that one aspiring candidate went to one ward and offered to buy voters cards from the residents of the locality. Voter buying some be discouraged. This is not what we fought for. It defeats the main purpose of the political change. Candidates should sell their agendas to the voters and not to engage in vote buying. I, for one, will never induce a voter. I rather articulate my agenda to them than buying their votes,” Mr. Martin remarked.
Martin will not name names of the political actors engaged in such electoral malpractice, but he maintained that some of the perpetrators had ties with the coalition government.
“There are some aspiring candidates, who are engaged in road maintenance—all geared towards fooling voters. No one knows the source of their funds. The electorate are very smart. No one can fool them. If they sincerely want to develop the municipality, they should come up with programs and policies rather than trying to hoodwink the voters with cash and bogus road maintenance substandard projects,” he said.
Mr. Martin also raised the issue of lack of high standards in the upcoming Mayoral elections. He said some of aspiring candidates are virtual illiterates-who can barely read and write basic English.
“The minimum requirement for one to contest as a Mayor is to possess a Secondary school certificate. Sadly, some of the aspiring candidates are secondary school dropouts. They didn’t finish secondary education. People are emerging from all over the place saying that they want to run as a Mayor,” he said.
UDP Dilemma
There are so many candidates who want to run under a UDP ticket. The son of Amie Bensoud and one Papa Njie are among the candidates interested in contesting under a UDP ticket.
“The UDP is in a big mess. There are so many candidates, who want to run under a UDP ticket. At the end of the day, the UDP can only present one candidate,” Martin said adding that it is only the UDP leader Ousainou Darboe, who can explain how the party intends to resolve its internal fight for mayoral position.
Martin doesn’t think that Papa Njie can pose as a threat to the other candidates, even whereas he was backed by the incumbent. Like Papa Njie, Martin said he too has been engaged in community work and youth empowerment lectures across the municipality.
IEC’s Malleh Sallah
Assan Martin said Mr. Malleh Sallah is a fine Gambian, but at the same time he warned that Sallah should avoid conflict of interest as the number two man of the electoral commission. He said it was ethically wrong for Sallah to reach a contract with the government by hosting the Janneh Commission at his hotel, when the same Malleh Salleh has been bestowed with the responsibility to organize and supervise elections in the Gambia.
“I trust Malleh Salleh. He is my former schoolmate at Saint Augustine’s, but I don’t think it is ethical for him to engage in commercial business ventures with the government, which has stake in our electoral process. There are parties that formed the transition government,” he added.
Martin said Gambians should raise the political bar higher by ensuring that our newly found political freedom is jealously safeguarded. He said politics of deception and inducement should be a thing of the past.
Finance Minister Sanneh
Martin also picked on the Finance Minister Amadou Sanneh during his Freedom radio appearance. He said Sanneh has no excuse to blame Jammeh for the current economic turbulent.
“We know for a fact that a lot of money has been pumped into this country from donor partners and financial lenders since this government came to power. Gambians should keep an eye on the government especially in the area of budget allocation and disbursement. Our meager resources should be judiciously managed,” he said.