It is really interesting to follow the exchange between the UDP and NADD.
As a stakeholder, I will not keep mute because the UDP and NADD alone do not
own Gambia, but all of us are. Based on the exchange that we have seen in
public, thus far, it should be by now very clear that the Gambia both sides
want to see in the future is not the same.
After all the debates and arguments on the question of "The Opposition", do
Gambians believe the below heading?
"The joint Executive Committee of the UDP/NRP respects NADD’s decision to
reject the proposals emanating from it."
There is a NADD proposal, in the form of the MOU that Gambians have reviewed
and analyzed and concluded upon. Where is the proposal or MOU of the UDP
for Gambians to review and analyze? Why is the UDP stuck at disagreeing
with the NADD MOU, yet they offer nothing to Gambians, but "come and join
us"? Can any person reading, show me the UDP MOU? If any has one, please
put it up so Gambians can be educated on what the UDP is mounted upon and
for comparison purposes.
Some may say this debate will still not give us a united opposition,
however, we are and educated people and we are interested in seeing what
holds water and what is porous between these opposing views. If this is a
time for all to put out, then all must put out or shut up. Let both sides
not worry about the analytical skills of Gambians, just put your foundation
down and we will put them side by side and tell you what we think. NADD
told us the Gambia they want to create, which is ground zero in this debate,
now, can we have the same for the UDP to start the weighing process between
the two?
Please read on.
NADD AND UDP/NRP VIEWS ON UNITY
NADD Executive Secretary
Dear Colleague,
Your letter ref. NADD/FA/02/02/06 of 6th August 2006 refers.
The joint Executive Committee of the UDP/NRP respects NADD’s decision to
reject the proposals emanating from it.
The UDP/NRP Alliance wishes to draw NADD’s attention to the fact that
legally UDP/NRP cannot be part or members of NADD. The NADD Executive seems
to be ignoring the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Sallah and
others Vs. The Clerk of the National Assembly and others. The suggestion
that UDP/NRP Alliance is to state categorically whether it is willing to
join NADD is a suggestion that fails to recognize the legal position that
parties cannot form or be members of political parties. Although Mr. Hamat
Bah and Mr. Ousainu Darboe and indeed any other Gambian is free and entitle
to join NADD the political party under whose umbrella you propose to sponsor
candidates for any election the reality of
the matter is that neither Mr. Bah nor Mr. Darboe is willing to resign their
membership of their parties to rejoin NADD.
The leadership of the UDP/NRP Alliance is very conversant with the laws of
The Gambia and in particular laws regulating and governing election matters.
Probably if the views of some people who are part of the UDP/NRP Alliance
were heeded the legal and constitutional mess created by the registration of
NADD would have been averted. The UDP/NRP Alliance is not seeking and has
never sought power for its sake. It is an Alliance that is genuinely
committed to the amelioration of the worsening conditions in all aspects in
The Gambia.
Finally I regard your rejection, without any discussion, of our proposal as
a rejection of our invitation to meet and discuss and this we accept in good
faith.
Yours in the service of the truth.
A.N.M. OUSAINU DARBOE
(For UDP/NR.P Alliance)
NADD’S RESPONSE
Dear Mr. Darboe,
ON THE CONTENTIOUS ISSUES RAISED IN YOUR LETTER
Your memorandum of 7th July has been received.
The Executive Committee of NADD respects your decision not to be part of the
NADD compact. Of course NADD cannot be part of the expanded UDP/NRP Alliance
since the two parties were part and parcel of NADD’s political arrangement.
However, the Executive Committee of NADD was very much disappointed that you
proceeded to indicate in no uncertain terms that the Supreme Court case
Sallah vs the Clerk of the National Assembly and others has barred the
UDP/NRP alliance from stating categorically its terms and conditions for
re-engaging NADD. The Executive Committee will convey its rejection of your
political interpretation of the Supreme Court decision and its immense
revulsion for your description of the greatest demonstration of political
will by the opposition by registering NADD as an umbrella party, as a legal
and constitutional mess. I decided to seek authorization from the Executive
Committee to address such issues
with greater clarity since you claim that the registration of NADD was
against your advice.
Mr. Darboe, even though I, Halifa Sallah, was not around when the NADD
Executive Committee sent papers to IEC for registration of NADD, even though
as Minority Leader in the National Assembly and member of the Pan-African
parliament I had more to lose in terms of post than any member of NADD when
our seats were declared vacant, even though there had not been the slightest
indication that I will be made flag-bearer before the court decision, I did
not hesitate to tell the whole world that the registration of NADD was a
blessing in disguise. The reason for this is simple.
It is incontrovertible that once the MOU was signed by the representatives
of all the political parties to establish NADD its registration became
mandatory in order to give relevance to its letter and spirit. Let me refer
you to the MOU to buttress my point.
Article 16 of the MOU states that “The Alliance shall have an emblem,
colour, motto and symbol to be determined within one month of the coming
into force of the agreement with the full participation of its supporters
and sympathizers.”
Suffice it to say that Article 8 also adds that “The selection of the
candidate of the Alliance for presidential, National Assembly and council
elections shall be done by consensus, provided that in the event of an
impasse selection shall be done by holding a primary election restricted to
party delegates on the basis of equal number of delegates, comprising the
chairwoman and youth leader of each party from each village/ward in the
constituency.”
Mr. Darboe, you have mastered the chapter and verse of your profession. I do
not need to quote section 60 of the Constitution to prove that the
registration of NADD was connected with, dependent on and determined by the
letter and spirit of the Memorandum of Understanding that all parties signed
in public knowing fully well what its contents were. NADD had to be
registered in order for us to contest under its ticket. This is the
requirement of the Constitution and the Elections Decree. Hence the attempt
to register NADD was not a constitutional or legal blunder; on the contrary,
it was a constitutional and legal necessity.
Hence anyone who sees the registration of NADD as a legal and constitutional
mess must equally consider his/her signing of the memorandum of
understanding as a historical blunder or folly. If signing the MOU is
considered a blunder where lies the integrity of its signatories.
In short, before we agreed on the content of the MOU we set up a technical
committee comprising the experts of all the political parties. Your party
was represented by people of high intellectual calibre. Within the technical
committee were former permanent secretaries and people with PhD. As far as I
am concerned, the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding and the
registration of NADD were the highest demonstration of political will by the
opposition to bring about democratic change in the Gambia. We proved that we
were determined to unite for change regardless of the peril or the cost. I
must admit that the UDP representatives earned my trust for the diligent
way they participated in the work of the technical committee. We should not
rewrite history because of the momentary convenience and rob such honourable
intellectuals of due credit. The determination mustered by all to
consolidate NADD was manifested after the court decision.
After our seats were declared vacant, we again had opportunity to dismantle
NADD and return to contest the by-elections under our respective parties. We
were given ample time to make our decisions. We concluded that our different
parties will remain allies while we allow the Executive Members to remain in
NADD so that it could serve as an umbrella party. This is why all Executive
Members of the various parties symbolically resigned from their parties to
remain Executive Committee Members of NADD. This again was the second most
important demonstration of political will, by the opposition to ensure
unity. It earned us the respect and admiration of the electorate for not
being self seekers.
The sacrifice paid dividend. We did not only win our seats back, the APRC
regime became so threatened that it had to arrest members of the NADD
leadership which gave rise to its total national and international
isolation. The coming of President Obasanjo, the signing of the memorandum
of understanding and the massive solidarity NADD received nationally and
internationally confirmed that it was the best instrument to utilize to
contest the 2006 presidential election.
Mr. Darboe, the fact that Mr. Bah left NADD at a time when he was pursuing
an election petition as a NADD candidate confirms where the political and
strategic blunder originated from.
We first stood by NADD with an iron will. It became an invincible rock which
was split by your withdrawal. This is why NADD has done everything to open
its doors for re-engagement. It is therefore immensely amazing that you
would conclude that you regard our rejection of your proposal as a rejection
of all invitation to discuss. I will leave the NADD Executive to clarify its
point.
As far as I am concerned, I have engaged you in a very honest and sincere
discussion because of my conviction that an alliance is the best mechanism
to contest the 2006 elections. An alliance on NADD’s terms provides
conditions that we have all signed to honour. An alliance on UDP/NRP terms
is yet to be defined in form and content. This is the point. NADD gave you
the option of making proposal on how one of your parties should declare its
desire to lead an opposition alliance and then offer its terms to other
opposition parties for consideration rather than hide behind the cloak of an
expanded UDP/NRP alliance which can never be known to the law.
To show you that as a flagbearer of NADD I have always been opened to
principled compromise, I would like to give an example of how to make our
discussion relevant, realistic, and indispensable. In a word, would you
agree to a proposal for NADD and the UDP/NRP Alliance to draw a list of
possible candidates and then select a group of prominent Gambians to select
one among their number to be a compromise candidate for the presidential
elections. This candidate can be restricted to a term of 2 or 3 years to
implement a rectification programme and prepare the country for free and
fair elections.
Secondly, it gave you the option of revisiting the MOU establishing NADD.
Thirdly, it gave you the option of giving form and content to the UDP/NRP
alliance to enable us to determine how it could be engaged without being an
expanded part of it.
How you can interpret these positions as closing the doors for discussion
beats my imagination.
Secondly, since the flag-bearer of your alliance wants no restriction to his
term in office to a five year term, would you accept an arrangement where
the NADD flag-bearer becomes the presidential candidate and sit for three or
five years while a system embodying a prime minister is introduced to enable
the flag-bearer of the UDP/NRP alliance to head a coalition government. The
president will be barred from seeking a second term while the prime minister
is allowed to seek the normal term of the presidency. These are the type of
concrete proposals we expect from you as we race against time.
I would want your opinion on these proposals before Saturday 12th August
2006. In the meantime, we are going ahead with our preparations to put up a
candidate. If you end up being found to have taken an irreversible decision
to contest the election on your own terms, we will leave history to deliver
its verdict.
If I fail to receive a positive response or a concrete proposal by Saturday
I will issue a statement to call on the Gambian people to give full support
to my candidature as the NADD flag-bearer.
To conclude allow me to say that history has record of the fact that we
signed a Memorandum based on commitment. We registered NADD based on
conviction. We lost our seats but still decided to stand under a NADD ticket
based on conviction. NADD still exists because of that conviction to unite
and bring about the minimum standard of democracy necessary to enable the
people to take charge of their destiny and free themselves from impunity and
self perpetuating rule in order to live in liberty and prosperity.
I hope we have reached a common understanding of what actually happened. If
you disagree with my view I will be honoured if we meet at Father Farrell
Hall to put our different positions to an audience in the interest of
transparency and accountability, as we prepare the ground to challenge the
APRC regime. We should clear the ground once and for all and restore the
climate of respect that has always characterized our relationship.
Yours in the service of the Nation.
Halifa Sallah
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