By Yusef Taylor, @FlexDan and Fatou Ceesay
The Gambia’s Inter-Party Committee (IPC) held a “post-election” press conference on 16th December 2021 at the Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara conference centre, where Co-Chair of the IPC, Hon Nyassi noted that “there was a violation of the Peace Accord” signed by the six Presidential candidates.
The press conference comes almost 12 days after the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) announced the results of the 4th December 2021 Presidential Election.
According to Hon Amul Nyassi who is also the National Assembly member for Foni Kansala, the 4th December 2021 election was “generally — free, fair and credible, that’s the position of the IPC”. This is also in line with a statement released by Gambian Domestic Observers who noted that the elections were free and fair.
During the question and answer section of the press conference, a journalist asked about election irregularities reported by Presidential candidates and their parties. Hon Nyassi responded to say “nothing of such has been received at our (IPC) level, as am speaking to you”.
It’s worth noting that three Presidential candidates had initially refuted the partial election results announced by the IEC on Sunday 5th December 2021. This included Presidential candidates from the Gambia Democratic Congress (Hon Mamma Kandeh), United Democratic Party (Hon Ousainu Darboe) and Independent Candidate Essa M. Faal. The following day Essa Faal withdrew his rejection while the United Democratic Party (UDP) is currently challenging the election results in court.
When our reporter asked for the IPC’s reaction to the rejection by other Presidential candidates, Co-Chair Nyassi noted that “no institution can address an issue that is before the court. So, in as much as we have certain parties or a party that has taken a petition to the court, there is nothing much the IPC can do all we can do is wait for the outcome of the judgement”.
Another journalist asked if all the candidates have acted according to the Peace Accord signed, Hon Nyassi gave a yes and no answer. In his view “certain candidates adhered strictly to the code of conduct signed by candidates”, however, he also highlighted that “at some point, we realised that there was a violation of the Peace Accord that they signed and as IPC we have to draw their attention to what they agreed on”.
Just last week, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) released a statement condemning clashes between the Police and UDP supporters at Kairaba Avenue outside the residence of Presidential candidate Hon Ousainu Darboe. On one hand, the Commission called on the Police “to always exercise maximum restraint in dispersing crowds and managing assemblies”. On the other hand, the NHRC called “on the UDP leader to encourage his party supporters to be law-abiding and to conduct themselves in line with the laws of The Gambia”.
According to Hon Nyassi, the IPC’s efforts ensured that “towards the end of the campaign you will realise that none of the contesting candidates was either castigating your colleagues or using hate speech”. In Hon Nyassi’s view “the Candidates and the Party leaders have tried to the best of their ability to adhere to the documents that they signed before our National and International Stakeholders.”
One journalist requested to know the follow-up work done by the IPC on some sixty telephone call complaints received from different parties. Hon Nyassi noted that “all these calls were addressing issues that have to do with either hate speech in a sense they were in violation of the agreement that the candidates singed”. Elaborating further Hon Nyassi explained that “not all complaints we could address at the time because you need to establish the facts before you can move into action. So, without the fact of the complaints received it will be very difficult”.
When asked how the IPC plans to overcome the challenges observed during the election, Hon Nyassi spoke about the importance of development as an ongoing process. Eventually, he noted that “upon receiving these complaints through the toll line that was provided by the NDI” the complaints will be “reviewed to know what actually went wrong” and how authentic the complaints were.
Speaking on lessons learned by the IPC, Hon Nyassi noted that “yes, we have a mediation Committee but after structuring a mediation Committee what next? What are the capacities that the mediation committee has, what are the facilities that available for the mediation committee to act on the complaints that were received? That is the biggest take home for the IPC”.
“We said lessons have been learned and moving forward the IPC will improve on how we receive complaints and how we treat them to satisfy the people who called to lodge their complaints. During the reflection that we had about a week ago, we are trying to come up with strategies, moving to the National Assembly elections how do we avert a replica of the challenges that we were confronted with concerning the complaints that we receive and nothing much could be done”.
About the IPC:
The IPC was established by political parties in 2017 as a forum for dialogue and co-operation to promote adherence to its MoU and Code of Conduct, promote national reconciliation and ensure consensus building amongst political parties on contested political and electoral issues. Since its establishment, the IPC has partnered with relevant stakeholders to implement activities that promote peaceful co-existence amongst political parties as key actors in national political and electoral processes.