One of the rejected Independent aspirants, Alhagie Mamadi Kurang, has said the verdict of the national electoral commission, IEC, “has no legal basis”.
“The IEC is trying to decide the fate of an election by overriding the will of voters with minor technical issues that have no legal basis.
“Nominations in the Election Act are about candidates, as clearly spelt out, not about party.
“In the next five years, citizens must use our National Assembly to clip the vain dictatorial tendencies of such government bodies, that are prone to using individual interest, under the pretext of applying the law and institutional cover, to deny citizens their rights,” Kurang added.
Meanwhile, the IEC has reportedly dismissed all appeals submitted to it by some of whose nomination papers the electoral commission rejected last week.
Kurang was was one of the 15 aspirants disqualified by the IEC, which over the weekend announced that only six out of the 21 nominees were deemed qualified to participate in the election.
Kurang was among them; and, it is now being reported that his appeal, along with those of Mai Fatty of the Gambia Moral Congress, CA’s Dr Ismaila Ceesay, GAP’s Alieu Sowe, ANRD’s Lamin Bojang, and the independent aspirant, Papa Faal, were all dismissed by the IEC, according to news reaching The Alkamba Times.
The Alkamba Times is yet to learn the reason(s) given by the IEC for dismissing the appeals.
A provision of the Election Act reads: “The decision of a Returning Officer on a nomination paper or any objection may be appealed against in writing presented to the commission within two days of the decision, and the decision of the commission on the appeal shall be final and shall not be called into question in any court of law.”
The law also states that there will be “no renomination” of a candidate or party flag-bearer.
