By Fatou Sillah
The Speaker of the National Assembly and Member for Sabach Sanjal has dismissed claims that lawmakers blocked Gambians in the diaspora from voting, clarifying that parliament has never taken a decision to prevent citizens abroad from participating in elections.
The response follows allegations by the member for Foni Bintang, who accused members of the ruling National People’s Party of rejecting diaspora voting while simultaneously benefiting from remittances sent by Gambians overseas.
Alhagie Babou Ceesay, National Assembly Member for Sabach Sanjal, emphasized that the Assembly’s position was centered on procedural requirements rather than an outright rejection of diaspora participation.
“I’m saying the decision was not to reject diaspora from voting; we never in this floor of the chamber rejected diaspora from voting. That is what I want to be clear,” he stated.
Ceesay explained that the discussions focused on the need for proper registration processes and constituency demarcation before diaspora voting could be implemented.
“What we did was there was registration of people from the diaspora, and we said it must be demarcated before registration can go ahead, but we never rejected them from voting,” he added.
Speaker of the National Assembly, Hon. Fabakary Tombong Jatta, also addressed the matter, noting that amendments made to a bill concerning diaspora voting were not intended to disenfranchise Gambians abroad.
He explained that certain provisions were removed from the bill because they did not align with constitutional requirements, particularly the need for voters to be linked to constituencies.
“I think there was a time when the diaspora voting came in one of the bills, and looking at that bill, something was removed based on the fact that they could not vote without having a constituency as per the constitution,” he said.
Jatta further clarified that the revisions formed part of the standard legislative process and were aimed at ensuring legal and procedural consistency.
“There was tidying up the bill that was not preventing them from voting because the agreement then was before you can vote, you need to go and register and vote,” he said.
Comments are closed.