Dear Editor,
For more than three years, Mr Lamin Manneh (Snr) of UDP openly and confidently declared that his party would subject the coming presidential election vote counting to very rigorous scrutiny. During all those years, the political establishment and the general public were mute, uninterested, or simply dismissed his statement. Perhaps nobody believed him then.
However, after a successful hands-on monitoring of the recent supplementary registration process, which successfully challenged and corrected the IEC voter count, there suddenly appears to be a frantic and, what seems to be, coordinated outburst of public condemnation of Manneh’s transparency pronouncements. That indeed begs the question: Why is there a sudden dread of transparency? Is it a raw political panic or a more subtle underlying fear? It certainly can’t be a fear of unrigged elections.
Lest we forget the sheer ‘inefficiency’ demonstrated in 2016, when two very different and conflicting final results were announced, that was virtually a commitment of an electoral sin of the highest order. Such a mathematical failure is more potently dangerous than a simple transparency check. In 2016, the country nearly plunged into constitutional chaos when the autocratic government found an excuse to dispute the results. Thus was born the child Ecomig a decade ago – a full-grown adult now.
Again, as recent as the outcome of the supplementary registration results, when 3,713 legitimate voters suddenly disappeared from the voter register. The IEC simply dismissed it as a “first-day printing anomaly”. It was UDP that stepped in, in defence of voter sovereignty, and forced the Commission to rectify the flaw, which was only possible because of the party’s parallel system. Further curtailment was made in what appears to be ‘duplications’, and the count still does not seem to tally.
Since the institution has been operating under a thick cloud of systemic mistrust, one would have thought that any measure designed to inject accountability into the system would be welcomed by all stakeholders as a plausible way to rebuild faith in the institutional processes. Instead, the fierce dissension we see today suggests that opponents are more worried about logistical transgressions than about a rigorous defence of voter sovereignty that would leave no room for manipulation and would be a robust way to strengthen democracy. The argument of a possible confusion that may be caused by a parallel result monitoring system does not efface the supreme and fundamental purpose of promoting transparency and building public trust.
It also sounds more plausible that any measure that strengthens and injects a rigorous degree of transparency should be welcomed by all stakeholders, especially for the IEC itself, as a way of clearing the overhanging cloud of mistrust and rebuilding confidence in the entire electoral process.
In other words, championing independent verification as a viable instrument for rebuilding trust in institutions is a way of strengthening democracy. However, the overt hostility and pushback being publicly demonstrated appear to reinforce the conclusion that it is preferable to have potentially compromised voter sovereignty over an accountable and transparent process. That is not in defence of a system; it is a defence of a right to potential manipulation.
It is good to learn lessons from someone else’s experience, and that experience is just next door – Senegal. With a high percentage turnout among several million registered voters, the final election winner was accurately and independently monitored and known in about three hours. There was a parallel independent monitoring system by the opposition.
Similarly, there was a parallel system in Ghana and Zambia in their latest elections. It has become a common feature in the political landscape of a continent notorious for the consistent abuse of democracy with vote rigging and constitutional manipulation. Unusual habitual circumstances sometimes require creative remedies.
It has consistently taken IEC over 48 hours to count fewer than 600,000 votes. Should we pretend that this sluggish and prolonged delay is normal? Come on. It is deeply fishy and creates an ideal breeding ground for electoral fraud. Yes, all things being equal, there would not have been a need for such a counter-check measure.
Furthermore, the UDP Manneh Monitoring System has been successfully tested during the by-elections in Massembeh and Kaiaf in the Kiangs. The outcome perfectly matched IEC’s. No problems and no disputes over the results.
Technology is the potent weapon against electoral fraud. Using technology and a parallel tabulation of results are not threats to democracy. They are the bedrock of transparency. It is a way of embracing real-time tracking as a rational step toward modernisation.
Simultaneously monitoring and providing verified counts alongside the official ones is a proven method to strengthen accountability, eliminate suspicion, and firmly reinforce the voter’s absolute sovereignty. Do we have to conserve an electoral system in the dark corridors of an unduly prolonged process?
Amid the shifting sand of coalition-building reshaping the dunes of our political landscape, it is high time we prioritized ring-fencing the sovereignty of our votes. We need to sail to in the wind of change and embrace parallel vote monitoring as the ultimate safeguard for our democracy and the security of voter sovereignty.
Lamin Comma
Brikama