IEC introducing paper balloting in 2021 presidential election

By: Mariama Njie

The Independent Electoral Commission has confirmed its readiness to use balloting paper in the forthcoming presidential election in 2021.

Speaking at a two-day validation summit on electoral draft Bill, the Chairman of the IEC Alieu Momarr Njie said: “at the level of the Independent Electoral Commission we want a fair play, integrity and transparency election.”

“In order to have a transparent election certain thing need to be included in the process so that both the winner and the loser will be satisfied after the election,” he added.

He therefore said his office will “make sure that from begin to the end is transparent so that when you come to register your party, we have a criterion that will ensure the party’s satisfaction.”

Mr Njie added that during the voter registration, they will make sure the whole country aware that registration is going on. This they planned to do in the first week of January 2021.

He noted that all the political parties will be informed anytime soon when the registrations will take place, so that people will be there to register and parties will be allowed to send their agents to verify. While names of those registered in that particular place will be pasted and this will be done countrywide.

He added that IEC will wait for 30-days after the voting before compilation so that if there is any objection from any part, they will register it and deal with those objections.