"Mr. Darbo claims that he resigned from the NADD party but not the NADD 
coalition." hummm!  This is a new one.

Chi Jaama

Joe


>From: Luntang <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list              
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: DARBOE HEADS THE NEWUDP-NRP COALITION
>Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 21:02:26 +0100
>
>  DARBO HEADS THE NEW UDP-NRP COALITION
>       By The Gambia Journal
>       Feb 13, 2006, 15:33
>
>
>
>The United Democratic Party (UDP) and the National Reconciliation Party 
>(NRP) on Saturday 11th January 2006 held a mass rally at Brikama 40 
>kilometers outside Banjul. The rally came in the aftermath of the 
>resignation of UDP leader Ousainou Darbo from the opposition alliance 
>NADD(National Alliance for Democracy and Development). The well attended 
>meeting had about ten thousand people listening to Mr. Darbo and NRP leader 
>Hamat Bah explain the way forward for the two opposition politicians. 
>Amidst the din of drums and songs jubilant supporters draped in the blue 
>and yellow colors of the two parties danced round the jam packed square to 
>hear speeches from about a score speakers from the two parties. Though the 
>rally was announced to start at 15.00 hrs, the meeting proper did not begin 
>before 17.00 hrs. The 3800 chairs said to have been hired by the organizers 
>were occupied well before the meeting began. Many more people sat inside 
>the ring while thousands more stood around.
>
>Before the two party leaders took the podium at around 20.30 hr, party 
>chairmen from the Kombos addressed the rally blaming government for rising 
>cost of living and corruption. Dembo Jatta of Brikama opened the meeting 
>reasserting the people of Brikama's support for the opposition and calling 
>Gambians everywhere to rally behind the new coalition being forged. Mr. 
>Shyngle Nyassi acted as chair for the rally while Bakau's Dembo Bojang 
>acted as master of ceremony. Though the meeting was well organized, with a 
>fairly good public address system and widescreen pictorial display that 
>held throughout, organizers had a difficult time controlling rapturous 
>crowds that spontaneously invaded the ring that surround the podium. Among 
>the speakers from NRP were Mbanyick Njie who moaned over galloping price 
>rises and what he called poor governance. Also from the NRP was Amie 
>Sabally from Bundung Borehole who swore allegiance to a planned Darbo 
>ticket for the October presidential elections and stressed the importance 
>of a Bah-Darbo. Among the speakers was also former Finance minister of the 
>deposed Jawara regime, Mr. M. C. Cham. Mr. Cham castigated other members of 
>the NADD leadership for having dragged their foot for too long in what he 
>called fruitless discussions. He stressed that politics is what is workable 
>and that he had long held the view that NADD was unworkable. This he said 
>was because some members of the alliance had hidden agenda and personal 
>ambitions. He urged the two parties to go ahead to the October elections 
>and not backwards to the failed attempt at a coalition. Former Brufut 
>Alkalo, Bai Bojang also addressed the rally calling on citizens of the 
>Kombos to unite in order to stop what he castigated as state land grabbing. 
>Mr. Bojang cited the example of Brufut, a town 25 kilometers from Banjul, 
>where government seized both residential and agricultural lands to give to 
>estate developers to build houses that the people of Brufut cannot afford. 
>Three men were
>introduced to the crowds as villagers from Janbanjelly who were former 
>ruling party APRC members but who are now said to have defected to the 
>opposition.
>
>   When it came to the turn of Mr. Hamat Bah to address the rally, the 
>crowd exploded into an unruly jubilation that took several minutes to 
>control. Mr. Bah announced that the NRP will be joining the UDP into a 
>coalition to contest the coming presidential elections. He said that his 
>party has also decided to have UDP leader as their presidential candidate.
>
>   Mr. Bah said that politics was about numbers and that in both the 1996 
>and 2001 elections Mr. Darbo's votes was far more than any other one from 
>the opposition. "What the Gambia needs now most of all," he continued, "is 
>the exit of President Jammeh from power. The whole nation is aware of this. 
>In the past two elections, APRC came out first, UDP second and NRP third as 
>far as votes were concerned. What then should the problem be?" Mr. Bah 
>added rhetorically. He continued that a Darbo ticket is the most feasible 
>and this was one reason that he urged his party to fall behind his 
>candidacy. Another reason Mr. Bah posited was that throughout their two 
>year period together working in the NADD alliance he had been watching 
>Darbo very closely and found him to be always truthful, honest and with 
>untainted integrity. "Some say Darbo has been tried in two elections and 
>that this shows he was not electable. I say look at President Wade of 
>Senegal. He tried in 1978, 1983, 1988 and only won when he stood in 2000." 
>He said because the man had both the character and the numbers behind him, 
>he and his party are now unwaveringly behind a Darbo candidacy. "Some say I 
>am selling the country to the Mandinkas. I dismiss that as plain and simple 
>tribalism. Something we must eradicate from this country. President Jawara 
>who is a Mandinka ruled this country for thirty years but the Fulas and 
>Wollofs benefited more from that regime than Mandinkas did. Tribalists are 
>either egoists or destroyers, do not listen to them." On the Memorandum of 
>Understanding sponsored by Nigeria and the Commonwealth, Mr. Bah, said in 
>the reconciliation spirit of that document, he was asking President Jammeh 
>to pardon all political prisoners including Baba Jobe and Musa Suso and all 
>political exiles; and to reinstall the removed mayors of Banjul and the 
>Kanifing Municipality, Pa Sallah Jeng and Abdoulie Conteh. When concluding, 
>Mr. Bah called on the youth to rise up to the challenges of the time, stop 
>wasting time on the practice of tea-drinking and employ themselves.
>
>   The last to take the podium was UDP party leader Ousainou Darbo. Mr. 
>Darbo talked at length on his resignation from the NADD alliance. He said 
>that he and his party have decided to pull out of NADD due to several 
>reasons. There was too much bad blood among NADD leaders he could not see 
>how they could work together to win an election and form a workable 
>government. The alliance was not supposed to be registered as a political 
>party but to stay as a coalition. Against his advice and his consent, 
>people went to register the party which led to the debacle of people 
>loosing their seats in parliament. There is no where in the memorandum of 
>understanding signed by the member parties that NADD was meant to be a 
>party. He claimed NADD has spent twenty-four months talking but was able to 
>achieve little. Apart from the MOU that five constituting parties signed 
>not much was achieved.  "We have wasted two years in fruitless talks. While 
>we are closed indoors talking to each other without any conclusion, Jammeh 
>and his people are busy on their electoral campaign. All activities of our 
>parties were frozen. We were not allowed to hold rallies. This embargo 
>continued while the ruling party is given a free hand and field to carry on 
>its propaganda. We felt this was unacceptable." He dismissed suggestions 
>that he was power hungry. He claimed he had been called in by President 
>Jawara in the former regime but he decline. Sheriff Dibba of the NCP had 
>invited him to join his party, which he also refused. He was not interested 
>in power, it was when the going was tough and there was the need for some 
>one to stand up against the military dictatorship that he volunteered for 
>Gambia, not himself. Mr. Darbo claims that he resigned from the NADD party 
>but not the NADD coalition. The meeting ended late on Sunday night.
>
>
>
>Copyright © 2005 The Gambia Journal LLC. All Rights Reserved. Power by 
>Btcsoft,Inc
>
>
>
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