Talk:2016 Gambian presidential election

The marble voting system

Is the marble voting method supposed to be a secret ballot system? In the cited BBC video that depicts the method, I notice that:

• Anyone who could see into the area where someone is voting would be able to see which barrel the voter is putting their marble into.
• The dropping of the marbles into the barrels seems to make a different sound, depending on which barrel the marble is dropped into.

—BarrelProof (talk) 22:33, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

The coalition

Some sources say that the Independent Coalition of Parties (ICP) consisted of seven parties, and some say it consisted of eight parties. Why do different sources report a different number? Did an eighth party join later? I think the article should explicitly list the parties in the coalition. It would also be nice to provide more detail about how the coalition was formed and how and why it selected Adama Barrow as its candidate. —BarrelProof (talk) 20:47, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

The parties are now listed. Apparently, there were seven recognised parties in the coalition. There were also two parties that were disqualified by the election commission and not allowed to participate. Most likely, the NDAM was being counted as the eighth in the sources that reported the coalition to consist of eight parties – as its leader was also quoted as encouraging the formation of the coalition. —BarrelProof (talk) 20:12, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Mammah Kandeh and the Gambia Democratic Congress

The article should say more about Mammah Kandeh and the Gambia Democratic Congress. Currently, we have no information about Kandeh's campaign or why the GDC did not join the coalition. Kandeh received 17% of the vote, which is a significant amount. We should provide some information about what may have motivated those people. —BarrelProof (talk) 20:57, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Based on what I've read, opinion seems to be divided over whether he was a deliberate spoiler to benefit Jammeh, or whether the Kandeh or the GDC were just too stubborn to join the coalition (there was a disagreement over how their candidate was to be selected). Both sides should be presented. Number 57 21:50, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

About that spoiler theory, I notice that the source says Kandeh "has been accused of being used to split opposition votes". To me "being used" says that other people might be using Kandeh in that way – not that he might be doing it deliberately himself. (However, I see that the second source that you provided puts it a bit differently.)

But whatever is the motivation of Kandeh and his party's top officials and some of his campaign donors, why did 17% of the population vote for him? If those people wanted Jammeh to win, they would just vote for Jammeh to win – they wouldn't vote for Kandeh. If those people didn't want Jammeh to win, didn't they know that all the rest of the opposition was going to vote for Barrow, and therefore know that Barrow had a better chance of winning, and therefore that they should vote for Barrow too, if they want to prevent Jammeh from winning? Kandeh's party is also very new – the newest of all the parties involved – so it was not just long-time party loyalty that made those people vote for him. I would have guessed that someone in Kandeh's position wouldn't get more than about 5% of the vote, but he got 17%. There must be something more to that story.

—BarrelProof (talk) 07:13, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

Maybe we should also have articles about the GDC and the Independent Coalition of Parties. Charles Essie (talk) 21:53, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

I think that depends on whether we can find enough reliable information to write good articles about them. In the case of the coalition, it may partly be a question of whether the coalition is something that will continue to exist in some form or was just a temporary alliance for winning this one election. If it was just a temporary alliance, then maybe it can just be something discussed in the article about the election and the article about Barrow. —BarrelProof (talk) 07:13, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

How many presidential elections were held?

We've been around in circles a few times on the phrasing of the first sentence, which says "Presidential elections were held in the Gambia on 1 December 2016." That seems incorrect to me. As far as I know, only one presidential election was held in the Gambia on 1 December 2016. Is that plural form some sort of colloquial expression? —BarrelProof (talk) 22:42, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

No, it's standard to use the plural when describing elections and is used in academic texts. A few examples from Elections in Africa: A Data Handbook

• "In 1974 Lamizana dissolved the democratic institutions and re-established military rule, because the power struggle between the speaker of the Parliament Joseph Ouédraogo and the Prime Minister Gérard Kango Ouédraogo had escalated in view of the forthcoming presidential elections." (p124)
• "The competitive presidential elections held in the same year were won by Lamizana" (p124)
• "Thus, the presidential elections of 1991 in which Compaoré was elected as the first President of the Fourth Republic were boycotted by all other parties." (p125)

Specifically from the section about Gambia:

• "Following a referendum that backed a new constitution in August 1996 and substituted the 1970 Constitution (rewritten and re-established in January 1997), the 1996 presidential elections were seriously questioned by international observers. The main opposition parties, including the PPP, had been banned until a few weeks before the presidential elections and all the major pre-coup parties had been banned indefinitely, meetings had been forbidden, and serious irregularities were reported during the campaign and on the election day." (p412)

Number 57 23:03, 13 December 2016 (UTC)

And yet we use the singular for the article titles. It's oddly inconsistent. Everyking (talk) 02:11, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

I wonder if there is some issue here of regional variation of the English language. I notice that in the articles about U.S. presidential elections, there is only one election held at each of these events. Each of those is not "elections were", but rather "election was". For example, United States presidential election, 1960 says "The United States presidential election of 1960 was the 44th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 1960." and United States presidential election, 2016 says "The United States presidential election of 2016 was the 58th and most recent quadrennial American presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016." and United States presidential election, 1860 says "The United States presidential election of 1860 was the 19th presidential election." —BarrelProof (talk) 04:23, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

Possibly, although I notice American newspapers do also use the plural, e.g. Prince George’s County Executive Rushern L. Baker III (D), who is frequently mentioned as a likely 2018 challenger to Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R), says he will decide whether to run for governor after the November presidential elections (Washington Post), The elections are widely seen as important indicators for the presidential elections of 2018 (LA Times), Jovenel Moïse, 48, rose from obscurity to win the country’s presidential elections this week (New York Times). Number 57 12:10, 14 December 2016 (UTC)

I suspect that the singular form is much more common in U.S. publications than the plural – especially when referring to U.S. elections. I notice that two of the three of your examples above are about non-U.S. elections, and suspect that the publication might be tilting toward non-U.S. phrasing because they are describing non-U.S. elections. In terms of logic, I really can't figure out why someone would use the plural form when referring to a single presidential election. —BarrelProof (talk) 18:29, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

Citations to IEC for candidate registrations

The article is currently citing three pages (for Kandeh, Barrow, and Jammeh) on the IEC website when describing the candidates and the dates on which their candidacy was registered. When I look at those three pages, I notice that they say almost nothing. For example, they don't mention political party affiliations at all. They basically only provide the name of the candidate, a picture, and a date. I seem to remember that there might have been more on those pages previously than there is now, but I'm not sure about that. It would also seem simpler, and provide the same information, if we instead just cited the IEC's list of candidates instead of those three separate pages. The date on the page about Barrow (10 Nov.) is also different from the date described in the article when citing it (9 Nov.). Are those citations helpful? Should we replace them with a citation to the list of candidates? Should we remove them? Should we change the date described for Barrow? —BarrelProof (talk) 18:29, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

References

The website is currently down so I can't comment, but as long as the list includes the candidacy dates, I don't see it being a problem. Number 57 23:06, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

It's interesting that the site just went down. I was wondering whether it would go down after the reports that the commission office was seized and the staff were not allowed to enter. I also wonder whether the fact that so little information was available on those pages is also a recent development. I seem to remember that there was more on those pages a few days ago, but I'm not sure. —BarrelProof (talk) 23:55, 17 December 2016 (UTC)

It's back up now. —BarrelProof (talk) 05:00, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

This article needs to be split.

This article needs to be split - especially in relation to the aftermath of the election and the ongoing constitutional crisis in The Gambia. - (119.224.80.18 (talk) 06:10, 12 January 2017 (UTC))

I agree. Number 57 10:22, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

I completely agree. This post-election situation seems it can only escalate at this stage with Jammeh still refusing to step down as president and ECOWAS openly threatening to intervene in The Gambia. I'd suggest the title of 2016–17 Gambian crisis or perhaps 2016–17 Gambian constitutional crisis.GWA88 (talk) 01:30, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Agree. We can summarize the post-election events in a few paragraphs and move the rest of the content into a new article. Everyking (talk) 01:37, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

I have split most of the aftermath section to 2016–17 Gambian constitutional crisis. I've tried to reorganise it a bit, but please feel free to change it around if it makes more sense another way. Cheers, Number 57 03:08, 15 January 2017 (UTC)