The United Democratic Party has accused The Gambia’s Independent Electoral Commission of failing to respond to repeated formal requests for voter-registration figures and datasets from the 2026 supplementary registration exercise, and warned that continued silence risks undermining confidence in the electoral process.
In a statement issued on 4 October 2026 by its media and communications team, the opposition party said it had written to the IEC on multiple occasions seeking statistics, registration datasets, and an explanation of how duplicate records were identified and removed. It said those letters, sent through established channels, had received no formal reply despite what it described as patience and restraint.
The UDP said it needed the information to reconcile registration totals, examine how duplicates were handled, and test the accuracy of the voters’ register. It stressed that its requests recognize legal limits on disclosing personal data and are not an attempt to interfere with the commission’s mandate.
At the center of the complaint is a numerical discrepancy. The party said the IEC announced 212,095 registered voters after the supplementary exercise, while a dataset supplied to the UDP contains 183,163 names — a difference of 28,932 voters, or about 13.6 percent. The UDP said it was not treating the gap as proof of malpractice, but argued that a difference of that size requires a documented explanation: whether the two figures reflect different stages of processing, the removal of duplicates or invalid records, a difference in scope, or some other cause.
The party asked the commission to release, without waiting for the end of ongoing Revising Court proceedings, the total number of voters registered before any deletions; the number of records flagged and actually removed as duplicates; the final register total after verification; a reconciliation of those figures; and, where available, breakdowns by administrative area, constituency, registration center, gender, and age. It also sought the pre- and post-deletion datasets in machine-readable form, the criteria and methods used to match and delete duplicates, the date the deletion exercise was completed, and the number of records removed for reasons other than duplication.
The UDP acknowledged that some final reconciliation documents may depend on the Revising Courts, and said it would request those after the proceedings end. It argued, however, that the courts should not be used as a blanket reason to withhold statistics and datasets already available.
The statement reminded the IEC that constitutional independence does not remove duties of transparency and accountability. “Silence in the face of legitimate requests does not resolve questions; it creates room for uncertainty, speculation, and declining public confidence,” the party said.
It called on the commission to acknowledge the correspondence, supply the available data, explain the 28,932-voter gap, disclose its duplicate-removal methodology to the extent the law allows, and engage political parties and the Inter-Party Committee.
The UDP also placed the public, diplomatic corps, development partners, civil society, and the media on notice. It said that if circumstances arise that compromise the peaceful conduct, transparency, or credibility of the election cycle, the IEC should be prepared to account for its actions and omissions. The party said this was not hostility or a prejudgement of the result, but a reminder of institutional responsibility. It reserved the right to pursue lawful remedies while insisting it would continue to act through peaceful and constitutional means.
The statement urged international partners and domestic observers to press for constructive engagement rather than take sides, and listed six specific steps it wants the IEC to take immediately. Democracy, the UDP said, is not secured by announcements alone but by verifiable records and institutions that answer to the electorate.
