(JollofNews)- The Gambia’s electoral commission has called on political parties in the country to provide it with their yearly audited statements of account or face deregistration.
The request is in accordance with the country’s electoral laws, which also requires political parties to provide the commission with an updated list of their party executive members as well as the addresses of their parties’ secretariats in each of the administrative regions of the country.
In a letter to all political leaders in the country, Mustapha Carayol, chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), said any party that fails to comply with the request by 31st March 2015 would be deregistered.
Gambia will hold presidential elections in December 2016, with legislative and local polls to follow in April 2017 and April 2018.
The tiny West African nation of less than two million people has been ruled by Yahya Jammeh since 1994, when the then 29-year-old seized power in a bloodless coup.
Last year, in a bid to outmuscle his opponents, Mr Jammeh introduced a new law, the Elections (Amendment) Act 2015, which increased the registration fee political parties pay to contest elections in the country from D10,000 to D1 million .
