The Interim National President of the People’s Progressive Party said the election that gave lead to Papa Njie is marred with irregularities.
Three executive members of the People’s Progressive Party have issued a press statement on Tuesday rejecting the results of the Sunday congress that gave lead to Papa Njie over Bakary Bunja Darboe.
The PPP held their first elective congress since 1992 where Njie defeated Darboe by a margin of 45 votes, with 227 for Darboe and 272 for Njie.
However, the Interim National President of the party, Alh. Yahya Ceesay; Dudu Taal, Member of the National Executive Committee and Kalilou Singhateh, Member of the National Executive Committee said the votes were marred with irregularities.
“The process of registering constituency delegates and the campaign leading to voting were marred by serious irregularities which are now coming to light. These include bribery of delegates, intimidation of delegates by withholding transport funds and food, and registration of unqualified constituency delegates. These undemocratic practices are contrary to the principles, the values and the practices of the PPP,” said the party officials on Tuesday.
“In the light of the aforementioned inconsistencies and irregularities in the balloting and voting process, which are sufficiently serious to undermine the credibility of the election process, we hereby reject outright the results from the PPP 30th December, 2018 election as we feel it did not reflect the true wishes of the bona-fide members of the Party that met to elect their Party Leader. We shall pursue this matter further to ensure that truth prevails and The Gambian people shall be kept informed.”
Though the press release fell short of explaining the tangible steps the party officials are going to take, they claim the candidature of Njie as a bona-fide member of the PPP was yet to be approved by the National Executive Committee at the time of the election.