In The Gambia, electorates would queue and only one person is allowed at a time to enter the polling station to cast his or her vote secretly. This privacy ensures there is no intimidation or influence from any person when exercising the right to franchise.

But citizens with visually impaired disability and with voting rights have ever been exempted from enjoying this same privacy since independence. They have to rely on third parties to vote on their behalf even though the law says secret ballot for all voters.

Alpha Secka, a visually impaired person said such practice is discriminatory. “We are discriminated [against] everywhere,” he said.

 Alpha’s short response goes to show his frustration about the system and the plight of persons with visual impairment in the country, in general.

Open to betrayal

During elections, Alpha like other colleagues of his, have little choice but to accept to be accompanied by a trusted family member or friend to vote for a candidate of his choice. While there is trust in that person, Alpha said that he would have no knowledge whether the person has actually voted as he had authorized.

“I trust my family member who serves as an escort to help me cast my vote without any two minds. I have the confidence he would vote where I want him to vote for me. But if he or she fails to cast my vote where I asked him or her to, it is left between the person and God,” he said.

Alpha has expressed dissatisfaction with this arrangement, describing the act as “political exclusion of visually impaired persons”. According to him, he could not enjoy his constitutionally guaranteed rights.

The 1997 Constitution of The Gambia is unambiguous as Section 33 warns against discriminations during elections, including those living with any forms of disabilities. The Gambia has also ratified since July 2015 and domesticated the Convention of the Rights of the Persons with Disabilities as the recently passed Persons with Disability Act 2021. It has also ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention the same year.

Mechanisms to respect privacy

Alpha demands that the authorities, including the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), put up mechanisms that would allow them to choose the candidate they want secretly without relying on a third party. 

“We want a system where everyone is included in everything,” he said.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), which highlighted several barriers to political participation of people with disabilities, underscores the equal rights of persons with disabilities to participate in political life.

This situation has also left Muhammed Krubally, the Chairperson of the Gambia Federation of the Disabled (GFD) concerned. A Magistrate by profession, visually impaired himself, Krubally said the right to participate in elections are statutorily guaranteed by national and international legislations.

However, he is concerned that the laws protecting them to take part in elections are disregarded in practice during elections in many ways, leaving their fundamental rights to be violated.

“If you look at the position of the ballot boxes, for the blind to independently cast their votes is always absent,” he said.

“You may sometimes choose somebody because you trust the person to go with you to the voting room to help you vote. Who knows [what happens] because you are totally blind? That person may not cast for the candidate you want to vote for. He may cast it for his or her candidate of choice.”  

These challenges raised are expected to be discovered by the IEC through consultative meetings with all stakeholders ahead of elections. But Krubally is disappointed that the IEC never factored the involvement of his association as part of the larger Civil Society Organizations in the country to take part in the formation of policies and programmes.

The GFD chairperson says the lack of privacy in the voting process is a rights violation because one could potentially be assisted by a stranger. He expected the IEC to make available to the blind the Braille ballots or enlarged print, magnifying material for easy reading.

He also raises concerns over the lack of trained personnel at polling stations to deal with people with various disabilities.

IEC’s weak alternative

The electoral body’s communications officer, Pa Makan Khan, has admitted that the IEC is doing less for the people with disabilities, including the visually impaired persons in terms of privacy voting. But insisted that the Commission has given them priority to vote as they are not asked to join voting queues.

On the issue of voting, Khan maintained that visually impaired persons can rely on their trusted family members to vote for the candidates of their choice.

 “…they may choose to come with an escort who may be a family member or a friend who helps them to cast their votes, and in doing so, those people must not disclose the choice of candidate of the person with disability because it’s a matter of trust and confidence and they must not break that trust,” he said.

If that does not work, Khan’s alternative is that such people can still be guided by the polling team who have taken an oath of secrecy to accompany them to the compartment and the person votes for his choice.