APRC Demands the Resignation of IEC Chair

Fabakary Tombong Jatta, leader of Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction, (APRC) has said that his party is preparing a communiqué that they will present to the Gambian leader to demand the resignation of the IEC chairman

“This is because no amount of discussion could restore the credibility of the Independent Electoral Commission, (IEC) except that Alieu Momar Njai resigns,” Jatta told The Voice in an exclusive interview. He said as far as the APRC is concerned restoration of confident with the IEC Chairman is more or less impossible.

“We are making a write-up and hopefully that we would meet President Barrow and endeavor to highlight some of the stands we have and among them will be for the IEC chairman to resigned,” he noted.

Mr Jatta also refurbishes the IEC Chairman’s claims that Jammeh called him to add 25, 000 votes on his votes, “Jammeh was not that type of person. I can tell you that Jammeh was insisting that he has accepted defeat even though some of us wanted him to wait for the IEC to announce the final results.”He explained that:

“One of the reasons why we are claiming that the election was rigged is that we introduced the spot counting to ensure transparency and credibility of elections. But it has to be back by the presiding officers given certified copies of the result slips to the various counting agents, but they never did that in the last presidential election, in most of the polling stations.

In fact in some instances they did have problem with some of our polling agents,” Former Majority leader of the National Assembly said in the absence of these certified results “that anything could happen because without certified documentation you cannot prove that the results that were counted on the spot were the results announced.”

“So we reserved the right to question the credibility of the election in its eternity because we could not comprehend that these errors were only made in URR. Our claims were also backed by Alieu Mamor Njai’s own statement on air by GRTS, when he said he was happy that APRC had lost and former president Jammeh has gone out of the country,” he alleged.

He continued: “The Chairman of an Independent Electoral Commission who was expected to be transparent showing his delights and happiness over former president Jammeh’s going was unacceptable.”

“What we are saying as a party is, the credibility of the IEC is at stake and we believe Alieu Mamorr Naji will never be credible in an election that the APRC is part of. This is why we are calling on ALieu Mamorr Njai to honorably resign from the IEC to ensure that the institution restores its credibility,” he added.

Author: Yusupha Jobe