Gambia Moral Congress Leader
By Landing Ceesay
The Leader of Gambia Moral Congress (GMC) on Monday said the December 4 presidential election is a ‘contest of ideas’ not ‘crowds.
“This election is about energy security. This election is a contest of ideas and not a contest of the crowd, as important as that may be. The crowd is not going to govern this country. It is intellect, it is policy, (and) it is raw gut to put an end to the cascading crime rate in this country. To ensure our law enforcement agencies have what it takes to protect our people so that Gambia’s development trajectory to be expedited,” Mai Ahmed Fatty told journalists shortly after filing his papers to the IEC.
On day 3 (Monday) of the nomination process at IEC headquarters, the leader of Gambia Moral Party (GMC) Mai Ahmed Fatty and the UDP Leader presented their credentials to the IEC; while All People Party and Gambia for All party withdrew their bids because the former joined the GMC, CA alliance and the latter the UDP.
The nomination of presidential aspirants continues today at the Election House in Kanifing. The process would complete on Friday, and the details of the aspirants are on Saturday expected to be published for public scrutiny, before the Electoral Commission would either accept or reject them.
The criteria for the nomination of presidential candidates for the much-anticipated December election are: a candidate shall be a citizen of The Gambia; a candidate has attained a minimum age of thirty years; candidate has completed Senior Secondary school education, a candidate has been ordinarily resident in The Gambia for the five years immediately preceding the: election; a candidate shall be nominated by not less than five thousand voters whose names appeared in the register of voters with at least two hundred voters being drawn from each Administrative Area; a Sworn Declaration of Assets; a Tax Clearance Certificate; Payment of Deposit of Ten thousand dalasis (D10, 000) as amended; Representative symbol, colour and photographs of a candidate; a person who is qualified to be registered as a voter under the Constitution and the Election Act may contest as an independent candidate in any election; a political party/candidate shall abide by the code on election campaign ethics which the Commission may time to time prepare; and a submission of manifesto encouraging the spirit of tolerance and multiculturalism.