Media Monitoring

During the 2021 Presidential election, Gambia Participates partnered with the Westminster Foundation for Democracy’s Thematic Expert Election Observation Mission to monitor online media throughout the electoral process. This was done in recognition that social media has a great influence on voter perception and is increasingly used to instigate reaction in favour of/against election candidates and political parties. The Observation Mission monitored political campaigns online for signs of voter suppression, intimidation, harassment and gender or tribal targeted hate speech and identified behaviours and rhetoric during the electoral period that were influenced by social media content. An example is the widespread campaign against a woman-candidate with sexist messaging portraying her as incompetent to run the affairs of a state. The mission also monitored whether candidates and parties complied with electoral laws such as the ‘no campaign’ period observed the day before election day.