One of the most widespread information about the electoral system is that there is only one round of voting in The Gambia because of the decision of the government to remove the provision of section 40 of the Constitution which made it mandatory for a presidential candidate to have more than 50 percent of the votes cast before he or she could sit as president in the first ballot.
This was removed from the Constitution in 2003. Now Gambia has the simple majority principle commonly referred to as “first past the post”. It means that if seven people contest an election, even though the combined votes of six of them may be more than the votes of the person with the most votes that person will still become the president. This is why the electorate has been calling on the opposition to select one candidate to contest the 2016 presidential election. Will any opposition party dare to ignore the call of the people?
Friday, 14 October 2016 will provide the answer to this question.
