By Makutu Manneh
The United Democratic Party said this week that it intends to file more than 1,000 cases with the country’s revising court, challenging what it described as widespread irregularities in the voter list published by the Independent Electoral Commission.
Lamin Manneh, the party’s Deputy Senior Administrative Secretary for External Affairs, disclosed the plan in an appearance on Kerr Fatou’s “Politic Kachaa” program. He said the party had identified voters on the commission’s rolls who lacked valid voter cards, were under the age of 18, or were not Gambian citizens.
“We will go to the revising court. We are to file over 1,000 people. We are taking all these to the revising court,” Mr. Manneh said.
The dispute centers on the timeline for filing petitions against the voter list. The electoral commission published its initial list on July 7, opening a 14-day window for challenges that was set to close on July 20. But the commission issued a second, revised list on July 13, prompting the UDP to argue that the filing period should restart from that later date.
Mr. Manneh said the party pressed the commission on the matter, contending that voters could not be expected to contest a list they had not yet seen. He cited the relevant law and the government gazette in making the party’s case.
He said the disagreement led to what he called a heated exchange between the party and the commission before the two sides reached an understanding. “I think they came to realize what we said was the truth, and they came out with a press release to extend the timeline,” Mr. Manneh said. He credited the commission for reconsidering its position, saying a prolonged dispute would not have served either side, since both were seeking the same outcome.
Asked whether he was troubled that the U.D.P. appeared to be the only party publicly pressing the commission on the issue, Mr. Manneh said he was not. He attributed the party’s ability to scrutinize the voter list to its organizational structure and grassroots support base, which he said allowed it to do work that other parties were not equipped to undertake.
“For us, since the end of the election on the 4th of December 2021 and that we have lost, we started work on that day for such not to happen again. We created a system that helped us to see all these,” he said.
He added that the electoral commission could not act on irregularities it failed to detect, and said the party had trained personnel dedicated to identifying such issues. He said the U.D.P. did not intend to criticize other parties for not doing the same.
Mr. Manneh said the party’s broader objective was to ensure a credible, fair, and transparent electoral process, so that the results of the vote scheduled for December 5, 2026, would not be disputed by any side.
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