The Way Forward For Democratic Change
Nemesis Yanks
It’s not surprising that the likes of Mr Nyang would be quick to come to the aid and defence
of their boss Halifa, even if that means trying to portray what is obvious as opaque. Neither is it
surprising that Mr Nyang would wishe to portray Lawyer Darboe as the coward, who was not brave enough
“to put forward their ambition of having their partners in NADD to wily-nilly select it’s party
leader as a presidential candidate, and backing out of the Alliance only after their 'behind
the scene cake sharing deals backfired; now they are at least bold enough to put their agenda
forward, albeit through some so-called coordinators and steering committees”.
However, before I response to his above claim, I will confirm what he has not disputed, which is that his boss,
Halifa had indeed misrepresented the facts and figures, which were corrected by the UDP UK
steering committee in our rejoinder. As far as the UDP steering committee’s rejoinder is concern,
this is the fact that we seek to correct. The rest is indeed all politics regardless of how Mr Nyang
wishes to present it and as i respond to each of them below.
Mr Nyang’s only attempt to explain why his boss, Halifa had gone to the length to fabricating fallacies
to convey a political point, was that his boss was trying to “prove that larger majority of
registered voters and non registered eligible voters are yearning for a new leaf in Gambian politics
and one option that will make that possible is giving the task to the people themselves to choose
who is to lead them. I will deal with that issue in another article”.
He said he would come to that later, but I don’t know why later, because if that had been the intention
of his boss; why was his boss not eloquent enough to express it in such a manner as he did, rather than
his boss giving us figures that were not accurate; such as claiming that:
“the UDP party led alliance also showed its weakness. Instead of adding votes
from the NRP and GDP, the UDP led alliance lost approximately 80,000 votes.
In short, while UDP had approximately 145,000 votes in 2001 presidential elections,
in 2006 it ended up with approximately 104,000 votes”. halifa
When the true picture was as represented by the UDP steering committee that
“In the 2001 presidential election, UDP had 133,590 votes. This was reduced to 104,000
votes in 2006 thereby registering a drop of 28,782 votes. The claim of approximately 80,000
lost is therefore outlandish and completely unfounded. Even if the NRP’s 2001 votes [32,198]
are put into the equation, votes which Halifa himself posited did not feature in the UDP votes,
the figure is still less than 80,000. It would be 60,980”.
Furthermore, it is not only the UDP UK who were privy to this information, but this figures were best known
to Halifa. However, why he decided to give us the figures that are not accurate is is still not best explained.
Therefore the UDP UK steering committee were right in raising and correcting these fallacies of Halifa. Which
proves that Halifa would go to any length to make a political point, which makes him not just
the new Mbarodi (lion of the Gambia) but also its greatest political philosopher; as Mr Nyang tries to portray
him here.
On the issue of the NADD selection; Mr Nyang disrespectfully represented that fiasco as Darboe being the coward,
who was not brave enough to put forward his ambition to lead. Mr Nyang and I best know that this is simply
without an iota of truth. However, such an immature justification is not far fetched, indeed it was based on
that stupid logic that had misled Halifa into thinking that he was the boldest among the rest of the opposition
party leaders that formed the NADD coalition. No wonder Mr Nyang wants us to believe that the Gambians know
that Halifa would respond to our every difficulty; as:
“it was one of such rallying calls by the Gambian people that Halifa responded to by demanding
a stop to their humiliation during the APRC Governmetns’s “policy of screening of witches”saga. This is what
every honest Gambian knows Halifa to be readily available to give his full support and service - not cake
sharing deals”.
We all know that this is a misrepresentation of truth by Mr Nyang. However, if Gambians are in need of bold leader
or a brave leader to lead us, then why would Gambians wish to remove Yahya Jammeh; the man who claims to
be the boldest Gambian to have ever existed in our country. Halifa is further brave man, except if he is at
Nyang kunda. In 2009 Halifa wrote a peiece on the arrest of the six GPU Journalists, but was not even
bold to mention Yahya Jammeh’s name in it.
In fact, unlike how Mr Nyang wishes to misrepresent it; Halifa had not gone to answer the call of the Gambians
suffering in the witch hunting saga. The man claimed to have gone on a fact finding mission. Now this
PDOIS fanatic wants to translate that into Halifa standing in front of the witch hunters and ordering them to cease
their malicious activities. This is far from the facts, Halifa was even dodging the said witch hunters.
He was visiting places that the witches had caused their persecution already instead of places where they were
heading for. So please save us the brag about Halifa being our Jesus Christ.
Back to the issue of NADD leadership selection, it really had nothing to do with Ousainou Darboe
demanding or not demanding for leadership out of cowardice. Lawyer Darboe had trusted Halifa as the
coordinator of NADD to do that simple job. He had hoped that this so called political philosopher will know what
ought to be the right way to choose a leader. However, as Mr Nyang now reveal his political gimmick
wanted to select the bravest, instead of selecting a leader based on the majority opposition party leader. This
is a simple democratic logic that the majority leads. Halifa did not need to go to school
to learn that simple logic, it had happened in Senegal, Ukraine, Nigeria, Ghana, etc. In such political coalition
you choose the leader of the majority party to lead.
However, the so called coordinator started to look for bravest (as Mr Nyang explains) and when he
could not find any one interested in his nonsense; he made his biggest mistake by putting forward his name; ahead
of even his own party leader Sidia Jatta. I guess by Mr Nyang’s assertion even Sidia was not brave but feeble
to put his name forward.
Therefore, it is rejected as utter nonsense Mr Nyang’s assertion that “the objective of the UDP UK’s rejoinder is
an attempt at selling the UDP’s ambition of having the opposition parties flocked together in whatever fashion but
have Ousainou Darboe and the UDP as a front to support it’s feeble agenda to challenge Yahya Jammeh and his
APRC”. This is utter nonsense.
Mr Nyang is further not serious to think that any serious politician will take Halifa’s agenda for political unity
serious again. The man has been handed that task in 2006 and he embarked on an adventure to look for
a brave man rather than a leader.
To Mr Nyang's questions as to why the UDP did not have enough seats votes in the KMC and Banjul
mayoral elections, and other local council elections.
Firstly, Mr Nyang had given us the votes scored by UDP in those local elections but failed to compare
it to votes scored by UDP in the same areas during the presidential elections. Simply because had
the UDP scored more votes in the local elections than the presidential election would mean that
the UDP UK’s position is right that the UDP indeed had not had adequate preparation for the
presidential election.
But in any event, it is stupid of Mr Nyang to reason that a party that loss in a presidential election will do
much better in the parliamentary, mayoral or local council elections. It is indeed naïve
of Mr Nyang to keep reiterating that analogy. Less he is too dim to realise, the UDP could never have
score more votes in the ensuing local elections, if it had lost in the major one, which is the presidential
election.
Therefore, the UDP UK’s assertion that the UDP did not have adequate preparation before the 2006
election was not finding scapegoat but a true representation of facts. The following minor elections
that ensued were not due to anything more than the fact that the voters were voting for the party
that they viewed as leading the country at the time. This is how our people think.
I shall continue from further with my respond to the rest of Mr Nyang’s issues about Hamat Bah.
Nemesis Yanks
Date: Wed, 3 Feb 2010 21:02:45 +0000
From: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: The Way Forward For Democratic Change
To: [log in to unmask]
Mr Nyang
It’s not surprising that like of Mr Nyang would come to aid and defence of their boss Halifa, even if that means trying to portray what is obvious as opaque. Not further surprising that Mr Nyang wishes to portray Lawyer Darboe as the coward, who was not brave enough “to put forward their ambition of having their partners in NADD to wily-nilly select it’s party leader as a presidential candidate, and backing out of the Alliance only after their 'behind the scene cake sharing deals backfired; now they are at least bold enough to put their agenda forward, albeit through some so-called coordinators and steering committees”.
However, before I response his above claim I must what he had not disputed, which is that his boss, Halifa had indeed misrepresented the facts and figures, which were corrected by the UDP UK steering committee in our rejoinder. As far as the UDP steering committee’s rejoinder is concern, this is the fact that we seek to correct. The rest is indeed all politics unlike how Mr Nyang wishes to present it.
Mr Nyang’s only attempt to explained why his boss, Halifa had gone that length to fabricate fallacies, in order to convey a political point, was that his boss was trying to “prove that larger majority of registered voters and non registered eligible voters are yearning for a new leaf in Gambian politics and one option that will make that possible is giving the task to the people themselves to choose who is to lead them. I will deal with that issue in another article”.
He said he would come on that later, but I don’t know when, because if that had been the intention of his boss; why was his boss not eloquent enough to express it in such manner rather than giving us figures that were not accurate; such as claiming that:
“the UDP party led alliance also showed its weakness. Instead of adding votes from the NRP and GDP, the UDP led alliance lost approximately 80,000 votes. In short, while UDP had approximately 145,000 votes in 2001 presidential elections, in 2006 it ended up with approximately 104,000 votes”. halifa
When the true picture was as represented by the UDP steering committee that “In the 2001 presidential election, UDP had 133,590 votes. This was reduced to 104,000 votes in 2006 thereby registering a drop of 28,782 votes. The claim of approximately 80,000 lost is therefore outlandish and completely unfounded. Even if the NRP’s 2001 votes [32,198] are put into the equation, votes which Halifa himself posited did not feature in the UDP votes, the figure is still less than 80,000. It would be 60,980”.
Furthermore, it is not only the UDP UK who were privy to this information, but this figures were best known to Halifa. However, why he decided to the give us figures that are not accurate is is still not best explained. Therefore the UDP UK steering committee were write in raising and correcting that issue as we rightly did.
This further proves that Halifa would go at any length to make a political point, which makes him not just the new Mbarodi (lion of the Gambia) but also its greatest political philosopher; as Mr Nyang tries to portray here.
On the issue of the NADD selection; Mr Nyang disrespectfully represented that fiasco as Darboe being the coward, who was not brave enough to put forward his ambition to lead. Mr Nyang and I best know that this is simply without an iota of truth. However, such an immature justification is not far fetched, indeed was based on that stupid logic that had misled Halifa into thinking that he was the boldest among the rest of the opposition party leaders that formed the NADD coalition. No wonder Mr Nyang wants us to believe that the Gambians know that Halifa would respond to our every difficulty; as “it was one of such rallying calls by the Gambian people that Halifa responded to by demanding a stop to their humiliation during the APRC Governmetns’s “policy of screening of witches”saga. This is what every honest Gambian knows Halifa to be readily available to give his full support and service - not cake sharing deals. But let’s face it”.
We all know that this is a misrepresentation of truth by Mr Nyang. However, if Gambians are in need of bold leader or ought to choose a brave leader to lead us or our opposition alliance, then why would we wish to remove Yahya Jammeh; since Yahya claims to be the boldest Gambian to have ever existed in our country. In 2009 Halifa wrote a peiece on the arrest of the six GPU Journalists, but was not even bold to mention Yahya Jammeh’s name.
In fact, unlike the how Mr Nyang wishes to misrepresent it; Halifa had not gone to answer the call of the Gambians suffering in the witch hunting issue. In fact Halifa claimed to have gone their on a fact finding mission. Now this PDOIS fanatic wants to translate that into Halifa standing in front of the witch hunters and ordering them to cease their malicious activities. This is far from the facts, in fact far from that Halifa was even dodging the said witch hunters. He was visiting places that the witches had caused their persecution rather than going to places where they were heading for. So please save us the brag of Halifa being our Jesus Christ.
Furthermore, the NADD leadership wrangling had nothing to do with Ousainou Darboe demanding or not demanding for leadership out of cowardice. Lawyer Darboe had trusted Halifa as the coordinator to that simple job. He had hoped that this so called political philosopher will know what ought to be the right way to choose a leader. However, as Mr Nyang now reveal this political gimmick wanted to select the bravest. Instead of selecting the leader of the majority opposition party leader; this is because it’s a simple democratic logic that the majority leads. Halifa did not need to be taken to school to learn that simple logic, it had happened in Senegal, Ukraine, Nigeria, Ghana, to name few. However, the so called coordinator started looking for bravest (as Mr Nyang now explains) and when he could not find any one interested in his nonsense; he made his biggest mistake by putting forward his name; ahead of even his own party leader Sidia Jatta. I guess by Mr Nyang’s assertion even Sidia was not brave but feeble to put his name forward.
Therefore, it is rejected as utter nonsense Mr Nyang’s assertion that “the objective of the UDP UK’s rejoinder is an attempt at selling the UDP’s ambition of having the opposition parties flocked together in whatever fashion but have Ousainou Darboe and the UDP as a front to support it’s feeble agenda to challenge Yahya Jammeh and his APRC”. This is utter nonsense.
Mr Nyang is further not serious to think that any serious politician will take Halifa’s agenda for political unity serious again. The man has been handed that task in 2006 and he embarked on his adventure of looking for the bravest rather a leader.
On the issue of why the UDP did not have enough seats votes in the KMC, Mayoral election and Banjul mayoral elections, and other local council elections.
Firstly, Mr Nyang had given us the votes scored by UDP in those local elections but failed to compare it to votes scored by UDP in the same areas during the presidential elections. Simply because had the UDP scored more votes in the local elections would mean that the UDP UK’s position is right that the UDP indeed had not had adequate preparation for the presidential election.
Secondly, it is stupid of Mr Nyang to reason that a party that loss in a presidential election will go on to do much better in the parliamentary, mayoral or local council election. Therefore, it was naïve of Mr Nyang to keep reiterating that analogy. Less he is too dim to realise, the UDP could never have score more votes in the ensuing local election, if it had lost in the major one, which is the presidential election.
Therefore, the UDP UK’s assertion that the UDP did not have adequate preparation before the 2006 election was not finding scapegoat but a true representation of facts. The following minor elections that ensued were not due to anything more than the fact that the voters were voting for the party that was voted to lead the country. This how our people think.
I shall continue from her to respond to the rest of Mr Nyang’s issues about Hamat Bah.
Nemesis Yanks
Modou Nyang
It is interesting to read addressed to emanate from a so-called UDP steering committee in the UK aimed at responding to an article published four months ago. However, the purpose and object of this far too much belated rejoinder is clear to any critical thinker. It is a PR attempt at presenting the UDP’s cowardly desire to lead at any cost. Unlike during the run up to the 2006 Presidential election in which the UDP leadership were not brave enough to put forward their ambition of having their partners in NADD to wily-nilly select it’s party leader as a presidential candidate, and backing out of the Alliance only after their 'behind the scene cake sharing deals backfired; now they are at least bold enough to put their agenda forward, albeit through some so-called coordinators and steering committees. The objective of this so-called rejoinder is an attempt at selling the UDP’s ambition of having the opposition parties flocked together in whatever fashion but have Ousainou Darboe and the UDP as a front to support it’s feeble agenda to challenge Yahya Jammeh and his APRC.
Whilst Ousainou Darboe, the UDP leader, continues to pay lip service to the desire of having a united opposition to contest the 2011 Presidential elections in interviews just to pretend that he and his party are open to genuine unity among the opposition parties, they set free their proxies to sell their true agenda to the public. Notwithstanding, the gang masquerading in a steering committee in the UK cannot just go by their game plan without engaging in a smear campaign. They needed a wall to lean on to to sell their nefarious agenda. And in Halifa Sallah and his work to promote the formation of a united front against the APRC they found a perfect position for marketeering. Hence it is now clear to every Gambian that all the noise is a simple PR job at presenting the UDP’s “rally behind a UDP led alliance” agenda to Halifa’s Agenda 2011's proposal geared towards exploring mechanisms to form a united front against the APRC. It is left to the Gambian people to decide which of the two agendas will better serve their interest.
The fact that the so-called steering committee will pick up it’s argument immediately after letting us know their bone of contention with Halifa by telling us Halifa has a “longstanding reluctance to rally behind a UDP led alliance and/or candidate,” is enough to discern the chaff from the grain. Why should Halifa “rally behind the UDP? The so-called steering committee never told us. However, it is worth mentioning that there is enough to rally for in present day Gambia. The Gambian people who have been and continue to suffer so much under the APRC government are calling loud and clear for a 'rally behind' their call. It was one of such rallying calls by the Gambian people that Halifa responded to by demanding a stop to their humiliation during the APRC Governmetns’s “policy of screening of witches”saga. This is what every honest Gambian knows Halifa to be readily available to give his full support and service - not cake sharing deals. But let’s face it. Why rally behind a UDP led alliance or candidate? Since the so-called steering committee did not tell us why, but went on to argue that it’s party’s performance in the 2006 presidential election is due to a “lack of adequate prior preparation”in their attempt to situate the UDP and it’s leadership of being in a position to lead and bring about change in the Gambia, one may take this argument as an answer to the above question. However, this preposition is not only selfish and insensitive of the plight of the Gambian people, but far from the truth. If one may agree that the UDP did not have “adequate prior preparation” to execute their electoral agenda in the 2006 presidential election, one should also ask what was responsible for their equally poor performance in the National Assembly and the Local Government elections three months and seventeen months later respectively. I hope lack of enough “prior preparation” will not be the scapegoat again when out of 128,451 registered voters in the KMC, the UDP Mayoral candidate pooled only 8,479 . And in Banjul the UDP managed only 1067 out of a voter register of 19,441. This was the trend in all the contested Local Councils throughout the remainder of the country. Was “adequate prior preparations” a cause to blame too, faceless steering committee members? Yes. The so-called UDP steering committee wants the Gambian people to believe their side of the story. They wrote:
“UDP’s drop in votes has to be put into the right perspective if one is to avoid misreading the result and distorting facts. The voter turn-out in 2001 was almost 90% [89.71%]. This figure had dwindled down to 58.58% in 2006 amounting to a registered drop of 31.1%, and this is notwithstanding the fact that the national voter register had been updated with 219,630 new voters. This is clearly a significant drop and has undoubtedly affected the general performance of the opposition in the 2006 presidential election. This is the conventional wisdom and it also explains why UDP had fewer votes in 2006 than in 2001".Dear steering committee, does it make any sense for 219,630 as you put it, to register to vote in an election only to decide to stay at home on election day? Sure it was not only for the pleasure of being in possession of a voters card that motivated them to queue out under the sun to get registered only to have a voter card for keeps. After all, one must posses a form of documentation first to get registered and the majority of them registered by presenting National ID cards. The question you raised by your own statistics which you knowingly refused to address is:
WHY DIDN’T THEY VOTE? WHY DID THE UDP FAILED TO AT LEAST EQUAL THEIR 2001 VOTES EVEN IF THEY COULD NOT ATTRACT THE NEW OR OLD VOTERS WHO WERE NOT WITH THEM FIVE YEARS AGO?
It is this question that the authors of the so-called rejoinder decided to gloss over that Halifa tried to answer when he said: “Any careful observer could detect that the country is crying for a new democratic dispensation and political leadership which could inspire the people to take charge of their destiny. The victory of the Independent candidates confirms that a non partisan agenda is a way forward for political change at the executive, National Assembly and Council levels.”The people have rejected all the candidates that contested the 2006 elections. Nearly half of the registered voters did not bother to vote for any candidate because of dissatisfaction with the system, one way or the other. But yet still the steering committee is not done. They want us to believe that a Ousainou Darboe and UDP led coalition is capable and can deliver the goods in 2011. They continued:
“It is therefore untenable to use this as some kind of empirical evidence to the suggestion that a party led alliance is unsellable. It wasn’t like if these votes were lost to another party[s]. These are votes which weren’t in the pond for any party to fish. In other words, they did not participate in the electoral process. There is no evidence to the suggestion that this is due to the type of alliance adopted by the UDP or some form of protest specifically directed against it. In fact Halifa’s own view was that the low voter turn-out was due to the NADD fall-out while the UDP blame it inter alia on the harassment and intimidation tactics employed by the incumbent. So 219,630 voters were never in the pond for any party to fish".Dear steering committee, I know you will not answer in the positive. Hence I will tell you this is one reason why we need a strategic alliance to fish out those 219,630 valuable voters among many others to rescue our country from it’s present predicament. It is not only putting forward a person backed by few people to contest as president, instead it is to convince the dissatisfied voters - those 219,630 and others who failed to register at all and even those innocent ones at the APRC, to vote for a program that will free them forever and put them on the track of prosperity. That is all. Nothing more, nothing less. After inspiring the people to change a rotten system, all and sundry can freely and openly call for the support of their program to guide the country forward. In this way there will be no lame duck blaming of harassment and intimidation to your misfortunes. After-all, the intimidation will always be there as long as Yahya Jammeh is in charge. Fabricating Lies:
“The lost of NRP leader’s Upper Saloum parliamentary seat in the 2005 by-election which was by the way necessitated by Halifa’s clandestine registration of NADD as a political party against every sound legal advice, and in contravention of the Preamble and Part1[1] of the Memorandum of Understanding that explicitly established NADD as an alliance, has had a demoralising effect on the party’s base particularly in the Central River Division, and due to the dogmatic wrangling within NADD, they too have not had a chance to adequately prepare their base for the upcoming election.”I have heard this before. First, it was in Brikama when the UDP organised a rally together with the NRP few days after Ousainou Darboe announced his resignation from NADD. It was one of the senior members of the UDP - Dembo Bojang the chair of that meeting who was peddling the lie that the remnant parties in NADD then conspired to have Hamat lose his Upper Saloum seat. And again here comes the lie once more. And in order to effectively sell this lie to the people this time, lack of “adequately preparation” did not affect voter outcome in constituencies like Sami and Kiang West, but only “in the Central River Division” and then blame it on the registration of NADD and Halifa Sallah. The tactic here is to continue to appease Hamat and the people who may still be in support of him to believe that the UDP loves them so much that they are taking up their party’s and erstwhile leader’s fight. But why did Hamat not regain his seat in the 2007 NA elections? The steering committee still wants us to believe in the 'lack of adequate preparations' as the cause. Out of the four contested seats in the 2005 by-elections it was only the Upper Saloum seat that was lost. Before the by-elections non of the incumbents were engaged in any kind of preparation to maintain their seats. And for the argument that the registration of NADD was clandestine and failed to heed “sound legal advice” can be best addressed by the parties concerned. I, as any other ordinary Gambian, at least at the PDOIS level, were not privy to any internal happenings during the NADD negotiations despite having the coordinator and two Central committee members in the negotiating room. Most of what I know about the inner dealings within NADD was what was in the open through press releases and later in the newspapers. Here they come now:
“Halifa’s claim that he had proposed a party-led alliance before is not strictly true. What happened was that PDOIS like all other parties knew very well that UDP’s position was to have a party- led alliance with the rest of the parties. They also knew that none of the parties including the NRP were at the time ready to support this proposal. As the chairperson of the meeting that was convened to discuss possible proposals for the creation of a coalition/alliance of all opposition parties, Halifa then felt obliged to put this proposal to the meeting alongside his own, the NADD option. At the end, the UDP position could not earn support from the other parties and that is how the NADD option ended up being adopted.”So “none of the parties including the NRP were at the time ready to support” your UDP party led agenda and in the end the UDP position could not earn support from the other parties. And that is including the NRP as you just told us, steering committee members? Could this be due to all the parties well publicised claims that only a united front was capable of dislodging Jammeh and the APRC from power? Yes, all the parties have said this over and over again. But now the UDP through it’s so-called steering committee in the UK wants us to believe that they are equipped to do the job single-handedly. And to go further that Halifa has a history of opposition of a party led alliance and to use the 2001 example as evidence is a continuation of the attempt of smearing of the image of Halifa further. Every keen follower of Gambian politics in the second republic can tell what exactly transpired in 2001 at YMCA or Girl Guides. The events of that meeting which even the NRP that is now being pampered by the UDP for it’s own interest, was not in attendance, [and therefore] cannot be called a genuine attempt at forming a united opposition. Both PDOIS and NRP were not in attendance at that meeting which was hastily convened. What it in-fact revealed was the internal differences among the original founders and supporters of the UDP, which resulted to the split of Sheriff Dibba and his NCP from the UDP. Hence 2001 was only the UDP as it was, with the exception of only the die-hard NCP supporters who followed Dibba. So it is not true when the UDP wants to blame Halifa for what happened in 2001. He was not at the meeting neither the party he belonged to as a result of the manner in which the meeting was organised. If there will be a response from PDOIS or Halifa, I am sure this would be more adequately addressed. This so-called steering committee’s malicious attempt at reinventing facts tells well of the character of the authors of this rejoinder. They want us to believe that the UDP ended it’s boycott by contesting the Bakau council and Jarra West by-elections. Yes it is true the elections were contested before the signing of the NADD MoU in 2005. But it is being economical with the truth not to add that the elections came at a time when negotiations for a united front were already in progress, and in fact, all the opposition parties took part in the campaign to get both Rambo and Kemeseng elected.
The Jarra West seat was more critical. The people there were made to believe that there was no need contesting elections due to the problems in the system to justify the UDP’s boycott in 2002. Time and resources from all the opposition parties were expended to campaign for the two candidates as it served as test for the ground for the emerging alliance/coalition that was being negotiated. I was in Bakau at the time; from nominations to the counting of the votes - I only missed the trip to Jarra but watched the tapes and know the input of the different parties and Halifa in particular. So it is a lie to project that Halifa opposed a party led alliance. The fact of the matter is that the UDP never tabled it’s wishes. All they did was to try and broker 'cake sharing deals' with some of the negotiating parties at NADD. This may tell us why Hamat and his NRP, whom this so-called steering committee confirmed were not in favour of a party led alliance in the beginning, later ganged up with them and try to fool the Gambian people that they needed only 5% of the votes to add up to their 2001 votes to win the election. It is this 'cake sharing deals' which later crumbled, and it tells the UDP’s level of despise of OJ for daring to contest the flag-bearer-ship of NADD.
The steering committee would not even tell us why Hamat was not present during the first meeting to nominate candidates for the position of flag-bearer of NADD and why the other representative of the NRP, Dulo Bah, did not vote or seconded Yaya Jallow’s nomination of Ousainou Darboe for NADD flag-bearer. Instead of honestly and openly negotiating with their partners, the UDP opted for other tactics at the back of their other partners. I hope they learn from that lesson and bravely and honestly negotiate for the support of their position.
In concluding, I will state that figures presented by Halifa were an attempt to prove that larger majority of registered voters and non registered eligible voters are yearning for a new leaf in Gambian politics and one option that will make that possible is giving the task to the people themselves to choose who is to lead them. I will deal with that issue in another article.
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