United Democratic Party has reacted with “disappointment” to the Supreme Court ruling on its election petition against President Adama Barrow and the Independent Electoral Commission. 

The party said in a statement that it was disappointed with the court’s decision despite the mounting evidence that it petition has merit. 

UDP said they had applied for costs of D300,000 through the court which was paid within the five-day period. Therefore, a notice of proposed cost was overtaken by events, the party said. 

“Notice of the costs was given to the Respondent by the Master of the High Court and further re-issued a second time by UDP to the Respondent. All these steps were upheld by the Court.  Surprisingly the Supreme Court decided to dismiss the entire Petition on a trivial point of technicality,” UDP said.

“It is even more disappointing that the Supreme Court chose to strike out the petition when striking out was not a remedy provided for by statute.  

“Further, the United Democratic Party had on the 24th of December filed 30 witness statements and over two thousand pages of overwhelming evidence that established beyond any reasonable doubt that:

“The conduct of the election was fraught with corrupt conduct and vote buying; Thousands of voters were added to the voter list after close of registration; Thousands of foreigners obtained voters cards in The Gambia illegally; The conduct of the vote counting was full of irregularities that made the result of the election null and void,” it added.

Reporting by Adama Makasuba

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