Hamat Bah, Minister of Tourism and Culture and leader of National Reconciliation Party, has claimed his party is prime pusher for the introduction of spot counting in Gambian elections.

“We the NRP brought spot counting in this country and I will give you the brief history of it. In 2012, when coalition engaged the IEC and we went up to the last minute, we had about 15 conditions and they (IEC) agreed to all execept one,” he said.

“My colleagues in the opposition said they’re going to boycott the election. I told them we will not boycott but there is one condition which NRP is going to put in place and that’s spot counting,” he added.

“I was thinking about the future and I was thinking about today. And they agreed but it does not stop at that. We went to the Political Amendment Bill in 2015, I went to the then chairman of IEC Mustapha L Carayol and Alieu Momar Njai and Sambujang Njie were all sitting, I told them that for NRP to partake in the coming election: you must include spot counting in the bill,” he said.

Reporting by Adama Makasuba