The minister of Fisheries, Water Resources and National Assembly Matters, who is also the newly appointed campaign manager of the APRC has said that preparations have already been made by the APRC militants and supporters to ensure that their candidate, His Excellency Sheikh Professor Alhaji Dr Yahya Jammeh gets a landslide victory in the 2011 presidential elections, come November 24th. 

Lamin Kaba Bajo made these remarks on Friday during an interview with the Daily Observer at that APRC Political Bureau along Radio Gambia Road in Kanifing south. He explains: “With the achievements registered by the government under the visionary leadership of President Jammeh, we are assured of victory. The National Executive Committee and the party structures have been organised for each of them to execute their duties as expected. Our candidate is marketable because we worked so hard for the past 17 years to transform this country to such a higher level with many achievements. We bought vehicles, motor cycles, we printed T-shirts, caps and banners to ensure the availability in abundance of all the campaign materials. So all the arrangements have been made.’’

According to Minister Bajo, President Jammeh is going on a ‘Thank you’ tour and will reach to all regions of the country. He said it is good for the president to show to the people that he really appreciates their efforts in voting him into office for the past years, while assuring the electorates that President Jammeh will continue to develop the country to an unprecedented level if voted into office again. 

Healthy democracy
Commenting on the country’s democratic system of conducting elections, Campaign manager Bajo said, if there were no healthy democracy in the country, then the opposition wouldn’t have been contesting elections since 1996. “It is because of the conducive environment in the country that the opposition are able to contest election after election and that is a positive sign of democracy. These [opposition] are  people we have always been defeating in elections for three times now. So they are not new to us. They have been contesting since 1996 and they sold their agenda to the Gambian people but were not voted into office, so they are not threats to the APRC and we are assured of a landslide victory come November 24th ,” he added.

Minister Bajo stated that the APRC have not seen any new strategy that the opposition can use to defeat them, while assuring that they  will continue to play by the rules of the game and that, there is no room for complacency even though they have done a lot for the country. “We know we have struggled hard to transform the country into a modern state and in as much as we are sure of a landslide victory, we will not also rest on our laurels. We have to work for it to ensure that we win this election,” he further stated.

Coordinating campaign activities
Commenting on his duties as a campaign manager, Minister Bajo said the APRC have submitted to the IEC, their campaign programmes and activities and the IEC will coordinate such activities for all the political parties. He therefore used to opportunity to call on all the parties to abide by the IEC schedule to avoid interruption of each other’s campaign activities.

Claims by the opposition
Responding to claims by those who said the APRC party is using state resources to campaign, Bajo said that it is normal for the incumbent president and his party to use such resources at this time. “The party leader is the incumbent president, so people should not expect him to hire a taxi to tour the country and when I am moving as a minister I have to move with my official vehicle. The security forces are also here to protect everybody including the opposition so when they are going, they need to use their official vehicles to ensure that they do their duties as expected. We have prepared everything and that is why we bought 46 brand new pick-ups and we also hired seven vehicles (pick-ups and gele gele) for each region. So if we are not  playing the game by the rules, we wouldn’t have gone that far,” he asserted.

He also used the opportunity to remind the general public that indiscipline and violence will not be compromised in this election, adding that anybody who tries to create violence will face the full force of the law. “At APRC we are preaching a peaceful election. We know what it takes us to bring this country to the level where it is today. So anybody who wants to destroy all what we have developed in the past 17 years will face the full force of the law. The wish of most the opposition is to see this country in trouble and we will not tolerate that. We want every registered voter to come out and vote. We want 100% votes for President Jammeh. Even those who are contesting against us, deep in their minds, they know that we are going to win,” he concluded.