By Yusef Taylor, @FlexDan_YT
The Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has released its third Statistics of provisional registered Voters highlighting that almost 557,000 voters cards have been issued so far. The Voters Registration process started on 28th May 2021 and is expected to run for 6 weeks ending on 11th July 2021. IEC’s third press release on the “provisional number of registered voters” highlights that more than 55% of IEC’s 1 Million Registered Voters target has been achieved.
At this rate, it is expected that the IEC will register more than 1 million voters. There has been a significant reduction in the number of registered voters each week. In the second week around 6,000 fewer voters were registered as compared to the first week. Similarly, at least 3,000 fewer voters were registered in week 3 compared to week 2.
To cater for this, our projection estimated that the total registered voters for subsequent weeks will continue to reduce by at least 2,000 fewer voters. Our estimates show that the IEC should still register at least 1.084 Million Voters if at least 176,000 voters are registered in each of the remaining three weeks.
There has been a noticeable change in the total registered voters in Kerewan and Mansakonko. This was first brought to my attention by a Civil Society Advocate. To follow up with this I made enquiries with an IEC official without any significant response. After looking back at the previous week statistic we made the below observation.
The IEC’s statistics report for week one had Kerewan with a measly 9,815 registered voters while Mansakonko had a whopping 22,193 Registered Voters. When you look at week 3 it’s clear to see that the situation has reversed with Kerewan now having a total of 63,258 voters while Mansakonko now has 27,196 Registered Voters. It is our understanding that there was a translation error between Mansakonko and Kerewan.
Women continue to dominate the provisional voters’ register. IEC’s statistics show that more than 57% of the registered voters are women compare to less than 43% of male registered voters. In total there are 79,220 more registered female voters than male voters. The difference is most pronounced at Brikama where over 27,435 more female voters have registered than their male counterparts. On the other end of the spectrum, there are only 747 more female voters than male voters in Banjul.
Banjul has the least number of registered voters, however; it has proven to be one of the most contentious areas given the legal challenge on the Mayor of Banjul issuing attestation forms for the issuance of voter’s card. This is currently being challenged in court by Gambia Participates and Center for Research and Policy Development and Councillor Aziz Gaye for Box Bar Ward of Banjul North.