Karamba and Mballow,
    Many thanks on your warm responses. It indicates a trend that needs to be
maintained; that of engagement and sharing in the war to defeat the Fascist
regime.
    It seems partly due to my own lack of explicit exploration of the
contentious issues that I said would be of necessity for there to any
effective "brutal bargain" to be struck between those who in principle
wouldn't vote UDP under normal circumstance and the UDP leadership, you
haven't sent right balls rolling in your responses. Allow me then to lay bare
the punchline as simply and briefly as possible.
    Virtually all of us agree on one basic thing: that the current political
arrangements leaves much to be desired for and meant for only perpetuating
the ruling clique whilst marginalising the People. In lieu of the aforesaid,
fundamental reform of the body polity are essential to ensure the tyranny of
Jammeh is not repeated by whoever takes over after we empty him into the
dustbin of history. The UDP was amongst many who decried the doctoring of the
1997 constitution to favour the ruling military. My fears are that it [the
UDP] can easily take the reins of power from Jammeh and prove to be spineless
in reforming the body polity that is designed such to give the governing
elites more self perpetuating powers. My questions therefore are:
1. Will the UDP put a term limit on the presidency?
2. Will it put an age limit on the presidency?
3. Will it give the Independent Electoral Commission further powers to
extricate itself from the corruptible reaches of the executive?
4. Will it work in principle towards disbanding the army and set up a
professional National Guard of fewer than five hundred men, well trained in
crowd control and protection of private property?
5. What constitutional arrangement can we expect from the UDP? What changes
will it make to the defective 1997 constitution it had criticised so much in
the recent past?
6. Will a UDP gov't recognise the rulings of Commissions of Enquiry that
confiscated the properties of corrupt members of the erstwhile PPP regime
given the uneasy symbiotic relationship that has become the UDP and remnants
of what is left of the PPP?
    None of your responses touched on any of the aforementioned. With the
aforementioned, we don't need "specificity" or detailed policies from
experts, policy mandarins and savants but a simple sacrosanct pledge of an
undertaking by the leadership of the UDP; a convenant of some sort in black
and white as to what we should expect.
    I will stop here for now and await your kind responses. Some might argue
that I'm very petty or my stance is diversionary as it will take the
spotlight off the dictator whom we all fervently wish to see the back of. But
better the wrinkles of our differences, concerns, fears and expectations are
ironed out now than later when only throwaway and ill thought policy drives
might ensue out of default. To rid the country of the cancer that is Jammeh,
we need to lay out the map in the open and mark our itinerary as clearly as
time and material permits us.
Sincerely,
Hamjatta Kanteh

hkanteh

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