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Written by: Seringe S.T. Touray
The opposition United Democratic Party (UDP) has called on the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) to fully reconcile figures from The Gambia’s recently concluded 2026 Supplementary Voter Registration exercise after identifying what it says are unexplained discrepancies in voter registration data released to political parties.
In a statement issued on Monday, UDP Secretary General and the party’s 2026 presidential flag-bearer, Ousainu Darboe, said the party’s review of the supplementary voter registration exercise was intended to “promote transparency, strengthen public confidence, and ensure that all stakeholders have confidence in the integrity of our electoral process.”
The IEC announced during its June stakeholder forum that 212,095 Gambians had registered during the supplementary voter registration exercise. However, Darboe said the dataset initially provided to political parties contained only 179,445 registered voters—a difference of 32,650.
After the UDP raised concerns, Darboe said, the IEC acknowledged that registrations recorded on April 8 had been omitted from the initial dataset and subsequently issued an updated register containing an additional 3,713 names, bringing the total to 183,163.
According to the UDP, the revised figures still leave a discrepancy of 28,932 registrations. While the IEC has stated that 14,334 of those represent multiple registrations that should be removed, the party says this still leaves 14,598 voter registrations that have yet to be reconciled.
The party also said it formally wrote to the IEC on July 16 requesting the total registration figures before any deletions, the number of duplicate registrations removed, the final register after those deletions, and the complete datasets before and after adjudication to allow it to independently reconcile the figures.
In addition, the UDP requested an extension of the scrutiny period, arguing that political parties and the public should be given sufficient time to examine the complete voter register once it is made available.
Darboe added that the UDP had met with the IEC earlier that day and that the party’s technical team would later brief the media on the outcome of those discussions.
He stressed that the UDP was not accusing the electoral commission of misconduct.
“The UDP is not alleging fraud or wrongdoing. We are simply asking for a full reconciliation of the figures so that all political parties and the Gambian people can have confidence that the electoral register accurately reflects the outcome of the registration exercise,” Darboe said.
Darboe also recalled that, before the supplementary registration exercise began, a UDP delegation met with senior IEC officials to discuss concerns arising from previous registration exercises, including measures to prevent multiple registrations. He said the party offered technical assistance to help strengthen safeguards, but the Commission indicated that implementing such a system before the exercise was not feasible due to time constraints.
Concluding the statement, Darboe said the UDP remained committed to engaging constructively with the IEC and other stakeholders to safeguard confidence in the country’s electoral process.
“Our objective is not confrontation. Our objective is confidence-building,” he said.
The IEC has not yet publicly responded to the UDP’s latest concerns.
