Country Report The Gambia January 2011

The political scene: The ruling party wins a by-election

Political campaigning has been relatively quiet over the last quarter of 2010, even though the presidential election is less than a year away. Voter registration will start in the first quarter of 2011 and the presidential election will be held in the final quarter. The parliamentary election is scheduled for the first quarter of 2012 and the local government election for the first quarter of 2013. Meanwhile, in a local government by-election for a councillor position in the Sare Ngai ward in October, the candidate for the ruling Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC), Alkally Kebbeh, won with 1,817 votes, beating Mbenkeh Ebrima Barrow of the National Alliance for Democracy and Development (NADD; a coalition of five opposition parties), who received 827 votes. Yankuba Colley, the APRC national mobiliser, called the result a demonstration of what would happen on a national scale in the presidential election in 2011. His prediction will almost certainly prove correct. However, this will largely reflect the ruling party's powers of patronage and its repression of the opposition-as opposed to genuine support for Mr Jammeh-as has been the case with previous elections (October 2010, The political scene).

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