By Seedy Jobe
Brikama Area Council Chairman Yankuba Darboe has urged the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) to publish what he described as a complete and transparent voter register following the 2026 supplementary voter registration exercise, arguing that any omissions could undermine public confidence in December’s presidential election.
Mr. Darboe’s comments came after the IEC acknowledged that 3,713 names were inadvertently omitted from the provisional voter register because of a technical error affecting voters who registered on the first day of the exercise. The commission said it had corrected the error and republished updated voter lists in the affected areas.
In a statement posted Thursday on his official Facebook page, Mr. Darboe said the commission must ensure that Gambians have access to an accurate register reflecting every eligible voter who completed the supplementary registration process.
“The IEC must provide Gambians with a credible registered list of all the voters registered with them during the 2026 supplementary voter registration process and not an incomplete registered list of the same,” Mr. Darboe wrote. “Otherwise, they will hold presidential elections in December 2026, which will be devoid of credibility.”
Mr. Darboe argued that an incomplete register could create opportunities for electoral malpractice. He alleged that if the commission were to cite missing names or corrupted data, it could rely instead on physical voter cards to determine eligibility at polling stations.
He claimed such a scenario could be exploited to allow ineligible individuals to vote by treating them as part of the missing records.
“Such a plot would be simple; it would require the IEC to pretend that there are missing names in their data or that their data is somehow corrupted,” he wrote. “As a result, we should rely on the physical voter cards issued for eligibility to vote in the December 2026 elections.”
Mr. Darboe did not provide evidence to support the allegation, and the IEC has said the omission resulted from a technical error that has since been corrected.
The Brikama Area Council chairman called on the commission to publish the final voter register in full and disclose the number of duplicate registrations detected during the exercise, along with evidence that those records had been removed from the electoral database.
He said the commission should account for every registered voter to strengthen public confidence in the electoral process.
Concluding his statement, Mr. Darboe urged Gambians to reject any electoral process lacking transparency and called for elections that are “credible, free, and fair.”
“We do not want a race to the bottom in The Gambia in December 2026, where the best thief will be crowned our president,” he wrote. “We want credible, free, and fair elections.”
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