By Ebrima Bah
Following the re-election of President Yahya A.J.J. Jammeh in last year’s Presidential race, Gambians on 29 March, 2012 once headed to polls to elect a new badge of National Assembly Members for a five year parliamentary .
The election went smoothly virtually in absolute silence. By silence here is meant the absence of the usual noise and hullabaloo associated with Gambian elections leaving the greater number of the electorate oblivious to the day’s major activity on that election day.
The election took place at precisely 510 polling stations in 23 out of 48 constituencies. They well managed by 92 assistant returning officers across the country’s seven administrative regions on that Thursday 29 March.
Another 792 polling centres did not take part in the electoral process. thanks to the boycott staged by six of seven opposition parties.
Out of the opposition parties that took part in the preceding Presidential polls, the National Reconciliation Party (NRP) became a “blackleg” this boycott of the National Assembly election of March 29, 2012.