BARROW IN DEEP TROUBLE
As UDP Stance Declares 3 yrs!
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- Taal at APRC Congress
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- Mama Kandeh at APRC congress
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- Barrow
"...H.E President Adama Barrow to be faithful to the terms and conditions of the Coalition 2016 and to also fulfill his promise to the Gambian electorates that if elected he will serve a term of three years and step down..."
The United Democratic Party (UDP), Wednesday issued a stance on the much-debated three or five years tenure of Gambia’s adamant Adama, who earlier declared he would not honor his coalition promise of a three year transitional government.
The embattled president’s hopes seem to be gnawed at by an ensuing isolation, especially when no major party in the country with a significant sway treads along his dangerous path. Not quite long ago, the UDP sent a delegation to the APRC Bwiam congress, also graced by Almamy Fanding Taal, the party’s spokesperson.
The Bwiam congress was also cameoed by GDC’s Mama Kandeh amidst a cheering crowd. If these bitter rivals and historical strange-bed fellows could, this spectacularly, bury the hatchet and embrace our Gambia’s historical process together, why can’t Adama Barrow initiate a talk with Gambians and the 2016 coalition vanguards to chart a way forward since this tenure schism?
While he, on the contrary mortgages our blessed tiny country to foreign and special interests, we can, perhaps only espy the horizons bearing a very serious shift of politics back home as we continue to supplicate for peace. Barrow still has all the chance to honor an agreement that has troubled our dear country, especially for the past ten months. Here’s the UDP press statement:
Press Statement
United Democratic Party (UDP) Position on Coalition 2016
In 2016 the United Democratic Party good faith entered into negotiations with other parties to form Coalition 2016 to amongst other things select a candidate to contest on the coalition’s platform the 2016 Presidential Elections.
The terms and conditions negotiated by and agreed to by the Parties to Coalition 2016 contain several conditions but for the purposes of this statement four conditions are pertinent and these are:
- Only flag-bearers of political parties or as independent candidates were eligible to contest in the primary process of selection of the Coalition Independent Candidate. This condition was complied with by Political Parties proposing Presidential candidates.
- Each aspiring candidates agreed to participate in the primary process by providing 70 delegates from across the Gambia.
- All contestants at the primary process agreed that the person selected during the primary contest will resign from his or her Political Party/ Independent organisation and become a Coalition Independent Candidate for the 2016 Presidential Election. Condition fulfilled
- The Coalition Independent Candidate agreed to serve for three years as President if he wins the Presidential Elections of 2016 and to resign as President at the end of the three years and supervise fresh elections in which elections he shall not participate. Pending
The position of the UDP is that if any of these conditions were not agreed upon by the parties to Coalition 2016 there would not have been a Coalition at all.
And given the sequential nature of these commitments there is substantial performance of the Coalition 2016 Agreement by the parties and there are no reasons to fail or refuse to perform the fourth and last condition the time which is fast approaching.
Consequently the UDP wishes to clearly state that as a stakeholder in Coalition 2016 the Party supports the terms and conditions of Coalition 2016 Agreement as restated above.
The UDP urges all the parties of the Coalition 2016 Agreement, particularly the principal beneficiary of Coalition 2016, H.E President Adama Barrow to be faithful to the terms and conditions of the Coalition 2016 and to also fulfill his promise to the Gambian electorates that if elected he will serve a term of three years and step down to supervise free, fair and transparent Presidential elections.
THE UNITED DEMOCRACTIC PARTY SECRETARIAT
Rene Blaine Street
Banjul,
6th November 2019