President Adama Barrow has called on officials of the Independent Electoral Commission to be impartial in order to run a free and fair election. 

Gambian voters go to the poll on December 4 in a hotly contested presidential election.

Barrow, who is seeking a second term in office, offered the advice to the country’s electoral body as he filed his nomination on Thursday (November 4). 

“If anybody is a member of the IEC automatically you are the referee and if you are the referee, you must be independent. If you are independent, it makes the job easier for the players,” he said.

“If you are independent,it  makes the job easy for all the parties to accept the final result, the final decision of the Gambian people,” he added.

The president said he wants to continue with his development programmes, adding “I have been in office for five years; I have one main priority for this country that is development.

“[And] development basically, if you say development is everything. But I have a slogan: no infrastructure, no development. I will continue with my infrastructural development,” he said.

Barrow’s party is expected to hold a grand rally tonight at the Buffer Zone to kickstart his campaign for the presidential election next month. 

Reporting by Adama Makasuba