Culled from The Pont of 15th January 2002.

‘Our Boycott Comes From The Grassroots’

Lamin Waa Juwara, the organising secretary of athe United Democratic Party,
has said that the executive had never tried to persuade their supporters,
but “rather it’s our supporters that persuaded us to boycott the election.”
Waa Juwara went on to say “ if they are saying that they don’t think the
playing field is level, they don’t think that the past elections were
credible and we don’t think our participation in any election will give us a
fair deal, we had to consider all these arguments. We have on record that
our boycott did not come from us, but from the grassroots.” He added, “This
was why they accepted the decision because they know the situation on the
ground more than any other people.

Mr Juwara further noted that despite the fact that President Jammeh was
called by his party leader to congratulate him and concede defeat even
before the entire counting process was ready, the response from the APRC
Government was not positive, adding “If you cannot tolerate a good
opposition, what else would you tolerate?” He accused the APRC of arresting
people, detaining and dismissing people from their jobs. “We know that the
only language they would understand is to make our position very clear. We
have a singular objective of saving this nation.

Mr. Juwara finally estimated that over 99% of party supporters are happy
with the decision to boycott the elections. “And there are going to be
follow ups, it is not a question of boycotting and sitting down to leave
them do what they ever want, but we are going to make sure that this
government either respects the rights of our own people or from now on,
there will be persistent protest across the board.” Shyngle Niassi,
president of the UDP Youth Wing, said that the decision by his party to
boycott the January polls came not only from the executive, but also from
the grassroots.

In an interview with The Point, the leader of the youth wing of the UDP said
consultations were made with party militants from the grassroots, “well
before we took any decision and in actual fact they asked us to boycott the
election. The boycott is the wish of the Gambian people, especially UDP
supporters. That had compelled us to boycott the elections. So there’s no
problem, no disappointment at all as they have highly welcomed and agreed
with the move.

Shyngle Niassi finally urged all UDP militants/ sympathisers to stay away
from the parliamentary election of January 17 “as we are not going to take
part in the elections. This must be our duty as youths of the party to make
sure that we respect the decision of the party and I am sure that no youth
of the UDP will go and vote” he maintained.


In another article from the same edition of The Point entitled "Hallo? The
Opposition … Hallo? This is our message", I found the following remarks very
amusing.

It would be difficult for them to come to terms with their new situation of
‘oppoindependent’ supporters. The same problem inhabits former UDP/PPP
members; here we are talking about PPP elements that joined UDP “because
they had no mum and needed to suck.” These PPP cum UDP people are the
political casualties of Jammeh’s amnesty to Jawara as they are at a loss and
do not know what Saint to turn to for enlightenment and direction.

As the PDOIS and the NRP in the provinces are not facing that secondary
contradiction of Jammeh’s move, the Greater Banjul Area and parts of Western
Division are talking about the political dimension of Jawara’s
reconciliation with Jammeh. It stretches their imagination as far as the
notions of fidelity and consistency are concerned.

Some are waiting; others have already made up their mind. One lady, a very
well known one for that matter, told us “for me elections are things of the
past; I would never vote again”. She could not understand, she added, two
things: the UDP boycott and Jawara’s amnesty. We can assure you that she is
not alone: there are many former PPP big whips who are contemplating
retiring from politics because they do not understand or know very well what
their leaders are up to.


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