Claim: IEC prints the picture of President Barrow on the ballot drums of all NPP candidates
Source: Viral screenshot
Verdict: FALSE
Researched by Mustapha K Darboe
A screenshot of a ballot drum showing the picture of President Barrow and NPP candidate, Essa Conteh is being widely circulated to suggest the IEC has compromised the National Assembly election process.
The picture was published by the Facebook page, What’s-on-Gambia – which has more than 350,000 followers.
A screenshot of the post on Facebook
The Facebook post has since generated over 300 comments and is also being crossed-published on other social media platforms including WhatsApp and Twitter and portrayed as showing how the IEC has compromised the National Assembly election.
This fact-check report will seek to verify whether the IEC has the picture of President Barrow on the ballot drums of all candidates of the NPP in the ongoing election.
Fact-check
The viral screenshot does not show which polling station or polling booth the ballot drum is being used.
However, the Independent Election Commission (IEC) in response to the claim said there is no such ballot drum in use in the National Assembly Election.
“Ballot drums are prepared in the morning and that is when candidates’ pictures are put on them,” a spokesperson for the Independent Electoral Commission- Pa Makan Khan said in an interview to question the credibility of the claim since the viral image was first reported online a day before the election, April 8.
Also, election observers with the CSO Coalition on Elections, the Elections Watch Committee and Gambia Participates said they had not come across any such box during their visits to polling stations across the country when contacted.
