Breaking News:Gambian opposition helping Jammeh to win September polls?
NRP/UDP and NADD say they will not come together to fight Jammeh-The Nation shocked!!!
Darboe/Sallah fall out again
Hopes
across the tiny West African country of the Gambia and beyond for an
opposition merger to fight incumbent President Yahya Jammeh has dashed
away, as NRP/UDP and NADD leaders failed to reach an agreement over the
"Presidential cake" which is seemingly eyed by opposition leaders.
Leader of Gambia's biggest opposition group and twice Presidential
aspirant Ousainou Darboe says both he and his colleague Hamat Bah are
not going to resign from their newly formed alliance to join the
opposition NADD led by veteran politician Halifa Sallah. Darboe in a
statement try to justify their move not form an alliance with NADD. As
the Nation is yet to recover from this heart breaking political twist
affecting our divided opposition Halifa Sallah of NADD says NADD
respects NRP/UDP'S move not to join NADD, but pointed out that they also
will not be part of the former since NADD was the parent body, while
citing the Memorandum of understanding that was signed by party leaders
about a year ago. As the ongoing talks to bring the opposition failed,
it is now evident that the opposition will be opposing each other come
September 22ND 2006. Local political observer in the country say the
opposition are embarking on a waste venture as none of these parties
can posed a serious threat to incumbent President Yahya Jammeh. The
abolition of the second round of voting , gave President Jammeh, who is
increasingly becoming unpopular in the Gambia an added advantage of
winning future elections. Observer's say Jammeh's biggest threat is his
own party which is gripped by power struggle and infighting. This paper
is now vindicated on its past stories about the power greed affecting
the Gambian opposition. Below is the full text of the bombshell letters
issued by both Darboe and Halifa Sallah on the opposition fall out. Please
read on...
UDPINRP ALLIANCE 18/19 Liberation Avenue
P.O. Box 688
Banjul, The Gambia
1h July 2006
NADD Executive Secretary
No. 30 Papa Sarr Street
Churchill's Town
Serrekunda
K.S.M.D
The Gambia
Dear Colleague,
Your letter ref. NADD/F A/02/02/06 of 6thAugust 2006 refers.
Thejoint
Executive Committee of the UDPINRP respects NADD's decision to reject
the proposals emanating from it.The UDPINRP Alliance wishes to draw
NADD's attention to the fact that legally UDPINRP cannot be part or
members ofNADD. The NADD Executive seems to be ignoring the decision of
the Supreme Court in the case ofSallah and others Vs. The Clerk of the
National Assembly and others. The suggestion that UDPINRP Alliance is
to state categoricallywhether it is willing to join NADD is a
suggestion that fails to recognize thelegal 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 UDPINRP 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
UDPINRP Alliance were heeded the legal and constitutional mess created
by the registration ofNADD would have been averted. The UDPINRP
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. OUSAlNU DARBOE ,
(For UDPINRP 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