QUESTION OF THE DAY
WHERE IS YOUR VOTER’S CARD?
Once you are 18 years or above, your answer should be simple: “My card is in my possession and is kept under lock and key where I keep my most precious documents.”
On the other hand, if you do not have a card or if it is lost or destroyed, you should remain linked to the media to find out when supplementary registration is to take place in your place of residence or where you were born and make it a point of duty to get registered.
All Gambians should bear in mind that not having a voter’s card is not an option. One should bear in mind that one’s citizenship is meaningless if one has no power or voice to say or determine how one’s country is to be administered. Your voter’s card is your voice and power to exercise equal power in determining who manages the affairs of your country. Get a card and cast it for the best candidate of your choice and if you have no best candidate to cast a vote for, support the second best and if you have no second best candidate to vote for then mobilise one to contest in future elections. This is how a citizen exercises his or her rights and duties.
Your voter’s card is not an identity document which you take around in a wallet or bag. Once it is destroyed or lost after any supplementary registration exercise you become powerless and voiceless. Hence voter’s cards should be used for voting and nothing else. It should be safe and secure as your most precious possession.
Section 1 Subsection 2 States: “Sovereignty resides in you. Power belongs to you. Take ownership of it and you will be no one’s subject. A Republic has no king or queen. It has leaders who could be removed from power.
This is why Section 26 gives each citizen political right. It reads: “Every citizen of The Gambia of full age and capacity shall have the right, without unreasonable restrictions –
(a) to take part in the conduct of public affairs, directly or through freely chosen representatives;
(b) to vote and stand for elections at genuine periodic elections for public office, which elections shall be by universal and equal suffrage and be held by secret ballot;
(c) to have access, on general terms of equality, to public service in The Gambia.”
