AA / Aljoner Ndiaye
Some 962,000 voters had been called to the polls this Saturday since 8 a.m. to elect the 53 of the 58 deputies to compose the Gambian parliament; the other five to be appointed by the President of the Republic.
Twelve political parties, including the People’s National Party (NPP) of President Adama Barrow and the Unified Democratic Party (Udp) of opponent Usainou Darboe, who came second in the presidential election, are in competition for these elections, which are being held four months after the presidential election which saw President Barrow re-elected for a second term.
The UDP, the party with which President Barrow was elected president to everyone’s surprise in 2016 against Yaya Jammeh, won the 2017 legislative elections with nearly 40% of the vote.
The Patriotic Alliance for the Reorientation and Construction (Aprc) of former President Jammeh, credited with five deputies during the last legislative elections, is also in the running for this election.
The challenge for the NPP, a formation created just two years ago against a background of disagreement between Barrow and Darboe, is thus to consolidate the scores acquired during the presidential election with 53.23% of the vote against 27.72% for Darboe.
It is between 239 candidates in total, including 46 for the Udp and 40 for the NPP, according to figures from the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) that voters in the 1,555 polling stations will have to choose their representatives in the hemicycle for the next five years.
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