Gambians vote in councillorship elections today

By Kebba Jeffang

Gambia’s President Adama Barrow , more youths and women are participating in politics since he got to office.

Nearly one million Gambian registered voters are expected to cast their votes today among 409 candidates vying for ward councillorship across the country.

This year’s scale of contestants is higher than the previous councillorship elections. It has also seen a huge increase of youths and women participation in seeking mandate from people.

The country’s Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has approved the nomination of 409 candidates from different political parties and independents for 120 wards. The Gambia has 886, 578 total registered voters with 1, 422 polling stations across the country, according the electoral body.

Below are the number of candidates vying for ward councillorship for political parties and independents:

– 113 candidates for United Democratic Party (UDP),

– 83 candidates for Gambia Democratic Congress (GDC),

– 63 Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC),

-32 candidates for People’s Democratic Organisation for Independence and Socialism (PDOIS),

– 25 candidates for National Reconciliation Party (NRP),

– 32 candidates for People’s Progressive Party (PPP),

– 17 candidates for Gambia People’s Democratic Party (GPDP),

– 14 Candidates for Gambia Moral Congress (GMC) and

– 25 independent candidates.

This is the first time council election would be conducted on different dates with mayoral one which is slated for May 12^th.

The next month’s voting will also witness the election of the chairmanship positions for the area councils across the country. This position used to be filled by an executive appointment.

Generally, the local government election is not considered important to many Gambians resulting to poor turnout.

However, the recent political landscape seems to be conducive to many people and therefore expectations are high that this year’s turn out would be better than previous ones.