Editor,

 

Please kindly allow me to share this little piece with your esteemed readers. Recently a rejoinder from the steering committee of the United Democratic Party (UDP) in the United Kingdom contested figures published by Halifa Sallah regarding the exact number of votes the UDP had in the 2001 presidential election.

 

In order for all Gambians and the rest of the world to see for themselves, I made it a duty to get a copy of the official declarations of the 2001 election results with the signature of the then chairman of the electoral commission, Gabriel J. Roberts.

 

The bone of contention of the UDP rejoinder was this statement from Halifa Sallah in the article published in Foroyaa newspaper, titled: "The Way Forward for Democratic Change".  Mr Sallah wrote: " ...Instead of adding votes from the NRP and GDP, the UDP led alliance lost approximately 80,000 votes. In short, while UDP had approximately 145,000 votes in 2001 presidential elections, in 2006 it ended up with approximately 104,000 votes. NRP had approximately 35, 000 votes in 2001. This did not feature in the votes of the UDP led alliance in 2006. Hence putting the three parties together did not lead to more votes; on the contrary it led to a lower number of votes. There is no empirical evidence to indicate that the same tactic will yield a different outcome".

 

On the contrary, the UDP wrote that their total number of votes in 2001 was 133,590 votes. Now you can all judge for yourselves.