The voter turnout for country’s recent elections including the presidential has not been impressive.
By Mammy Saidykhan
Polls have close in what is widely believed to be Gambia’s most contested mayoral and chairmanship elections in two decades as voters and electoral officers lament low voter turnout.
Presiding officers at eight polling streams in Farato have told Kerr Fatou that the voter turnout has been very low compared to past elections.
“Since morning, the process has been smooth but the voter turnout was low,” Lamin Kenjo Cham, presiding officer a polling station in Farato has said.
Elsewhere in Latrikunda Sabiji, the story of voter turnout is not any different.
But Maimuna Camara, a presiding officer at Farato Sanchaba, thinks the low voter turnout is because electorates do not attach so much significance to the local governments in their lives.
“I have observed that electorates tend to think that local government elections are not important. That is one of the factors that influences low voter turnout,” Camara said.
The voter turnout for country’s recent elections including the presidential has not been impressive. In the councilor election that passed about two months ago, only 34% of the 800, 000 eligible voters cast their ballot.
But despite the low voter turnout, it seems the importance of the election is not lost on people.
“I have seen the importance of local government elections that was why I voted,” Babucarr Secka a voter in Farato, told Kerr Fatou.
“It is the process which will decide who is going to manager our local revenues which is used to develop our community and the national at larger.”