Hello, all the following thoughts have just been posted at my blog at http://quickgm28.blogs.com, regarding yesterday's Kombo East by-elections.

I hope my thoughts were clear, however comments and questions are always welcome if there were not.  

Ginny

     Assalamu alaikum / greetings, well, the results of the Kombo East by-election are in, and the APRC has retained their seat.  Needless to say, I am
very disappointed, since the general concensus seemed to be that the opposition would win.
     However, if you look at the numbers, the opposition did, indeed, get a majority of the votes.  However, those votes were split between the NADD candidate
and the UDP/NRP candidate.  So what does this say?
     To my mind, the only * sure * way of beating Yahya Jammeh come October 2006, is to have a united opposition.  However, it seems that getting the opposition
to come back to the table is going to be difficult at best, especially when at least one of the NADD members, namely Lamin Wa Juwara, seems to want to
make this campaign more about his personal dislike for Ousainou Darboe than about any real issues with the APRC.  Just this past Friday, there was an article
in the Point newspaper, where Lamin Wa Juwara alleges that the reason why the UDP could not contest the last Parliamentary elections was because Ousainou
Darboe used party funds to pay a tax bill.  If this is the case, what evidence does Wa Juwara have to back this up?  Also, wasn't Lamin Wa Juwara still
a member of UDP at this time?  If so, did he bring this up at the time, and if not why?  And why bring this up now, when it's not even Darboe himself running
for office?
     OK, I'm digressing here, but this is just one example of why it will be extremely hard for the opposition to unite before October.  And basically,
what I'm reading in this article is not that Wa Juwara wants UDP to come back to the table, but he wants the * supporters * to come back to the table.
 So, does he really want a united opposition?  If he does, he wants a Darboeless united opposition, and as it seems that many still support Darboe, this
does not seem to be likely.
     There was a small gathering of Gambians in Nashville yesterday, which I was fortunate enough to attend, and I made the statement there that the only
sure way for the opposition to win in October would be for them to unite.  I also stated that all of the past problems with NADD, which eventually led
to them breaking up, had to be put aside in the interest of the country and the Gambian people.  I mean, I have stated here, in previous posts, that it
seemed to me that NADD, pre-Darboe resignation, could not put their egoes aside long enough to even select a flag-bearer, and I still stand by that statement,
and as I see things now, I'm not sure that the opposition members, whether from NADD or UDP, would be able to put their differences aside to unite, form
a coalition, and oust Jammeh in 2006.
     And you know, this makes me sad.  Just as Ousainou Darboe may need to be told to put his "power-hungry political aspirations aside and come back to
NADD, as some have suggested, then Wa Juwara needs to stop using the NADD platform as a means of castigating and maligning Darboe, as well.  He can have
his problems with Darboe all he wants, but for the sake of the Gambian people, he really needs to stop.  But no one seems to be saying this.  It's all
about "power-hungry, tribalistic, Darboe".
     In all of this fingerpointing and levelling of accusations, the real goal of getting rid of Jammeh come October has been lost site of.  The struggling,
defenseless Gambian masses have been forgotten, it seems, by both NADD and UDP/NRP alike.  And that's what makes me sad.  That is what gives me such a
despondent, frustrated feeling today.
     I also want to address some other points related to the gathering yesterday, as well as putting some other thoughts out there.  First of all, I want
to thank everyone at the gathering for making me feel welcome, and allowing me to come and participate, even if I spent most of my time just listening
and observing.  Everyone was very nice, and I jokingly had the thought that this would have been a wonderful group of people to spend the Eid with * smiling
*.
     But anyway, at one point during the day, I began speaking to a guy called Musa (sorry Musa don't know your last name), who, just after introducing
himself, said to me, "Oh, I know you're a UDP supporter, I can tell by your postings".  Firstly, I want to make it clear, so no one gets it twisted, I
want a united opposition, because that is an almost sure way (because nothing is ever certain, it seems), of ousting Jammeh come 2006.  It's a united opposition
that I want, that, to me, would be the best thing for the Gambian people, and the numbers seemed to show this yesterday.  Though the APRC won, the "opposition"
divided between UDP/NRP and NADD, got * most * of the votes.
     My "support" for the UDP/NRP stems from my understanding of what caused the split in the first place.  My understanding is that, what ultimately led
to the split had to do with the initial selection of the flag-bearer, where Omar Jallow was selected.  As it was explained to me, Ousainou Darboe and Omar
Jallow were the two candidates up for the selection of the flag-bearer of NADD.  Hamat Bah had put his support behind Ousainou Darboe, and as he was in
Dakar, he delegated the voting responsibility to Dulo Bah.  Dulo Bah, instead, voted for Omar Jallow, at which point, the selection process was stopped,
because the NADD chairman had been told in advance that the NRP was backing Darboe.
     When asked why Dulo Bah was voting for Omar Jallow, when it had already been communicated to the chairman of NADD that Dulo would be voting for Darboe,
he made the statement that "Hamat Bah was a dictator".  However, up to this time, Dulo Bah had never mentioned this as a problem before.
     Now, my understanding is that the actual reason why Dulo Bah voted for Omar Jalow was not because "Hamat Bah was a dictator", but because he was bribed
into voting for Omar Jallow, instead of Ousainou Darboe.
     In my statements at the Nashville meeting yesterday, I said that if this was the case, if Dulo Bah was indeed bribed into voting for Omar Jallow, then
I could no longer support a party / coalition who engaged in this sort of behavior.  Because how can an opposition party / coalition claim to be better
than the incumbent government who, as is well-known, engages in fraudulent tactics including vote-buying, when said opposition party engages in the same
tactics?
     And that was what did it for me.  How can you expect Darboe, a man who has spent his life upholding the law, stand by and watch a fraudulent process
take place, and then go along with it?  And that seems to be what the NADD supporters / members expected Darboe to do.  If Darboe would have went along
with this process, if it was indeed fraudulent, as has been communicated to me, then this would be wrong, and then, in that case, the opposition would
be no better than the people they are trying to get out of office.
     However, at this point, that is water under the bridge.  We can sit and argue all day long about why Darboe resigned, why NADD split, etc., but that's
not going to change the fact that the split has happened, and castigating Darboe and labelling him as a corrupt, power-hungry tribalist, isn't going to
bring either him nor his supporters back to the NADD table.
     Some other things which I've seen among some supporters of NADD, are (1), this idea that the entire political process needs to be changed and / or
reinvented, (2), this implicit idea that if Gambians don't support NADD, then they are either selfish, or they are just too stupid and thus are gullible
to "politicians playing with their minds".  And if indeed, some segments of NADD feel this way about the Gambian people, what does this say about how they
will treat the Gambian people, if they are elected to office?  If you think that the "Gambian people are just too stupid", would you listen to their concerns,
or would you "do what's best for them", regardless if they want it or not?
     Also, if NADD takes the position of some of their supporters that "if you are for NADD, you are for The Gambia, but if you're not for NADD, you're
not for The Gambia, or you're only for yourself", how will NADD treat the voters they perceive as not voting for them, if indeed, they win the elections
in October?  Will their be repercutions for the "districts that didn't vote for us"?
     To me, the "Gambians are only for Gambia if they support NADD" smacks of "undemocraticness", and I know that's not a real word, but if you truly believe
in democracy, you must respect and uphold the people's right to elect the candidate of their choice, even if it's the APRC candidate.
     If the elections yesterday were transparent, free, and fair, and if October's elections are the same, with no shinanigans by the APRC, and the APRC
ultimately wins, the opposition must accept that, whether they are united or not, if they truly believe in democracy for The Gambia.
     Yeah, I would not agree with this result, and it would indeed make me wonder if the majority of Gambians didn't feel that murder of innocent people,
corruption, and the  ignoring of the rule of law would be OK, according to the majority of Gambians.  And if this would indeed be the case, I'd be truly
saddened.  But, if the majority of Gambians indeed vote for this, barring any electoral misconduct, then the Gambian people would indeed have to live with
that result.
     Anyway, getting back to my original assertion, I feel that in order for the opposition to have a stronger chance of beating the APRC come October,
the opposition must be united.  However, as strongly as I feel about that, getting the opposition to again come together is going to be a truly uphill
battle.  And I applaud Haruna Darboe's Global Democracy Project for working hard to achieve this goal.  In my view, this is what should have happened,
back when the split from NADD by the UDP/NRP first took place.  Cooler, more mature heads, should have prevailed at that point.  Honest attempts should
have been made to ascertain why the split took place, and though many may have disagreed with Darboe's reasoning, Darboe's concerns should have been treated
as legitimate.  But they were not.  In fact, attempts were made to malign Darboe, even before Darboe actually resigned, and in order to see this, one can
go back and read the numerous pieces posted by Pa Nderry Mbai, in at least the weeks leading up to the split from NADD by the UDP/NRP.
     It seems that what NADD wants is the UDP to come back, sans Darboe, and I'm not sure if that is going to happen, not because of Darboe's supposed power-hungriness,
but because the UDP has chosen Darboe to lead them.  If NADD wants a Darboeless UDP, then they would be dictating to the UDP, that they * must * pick someone
else to lead them, and how democratic is that?  You may not like the guy, but if UDP has chosen him, and you say you want a united opposition, than that
is who you have to work with, like it or not.  If you want to dictate to other parties who they should choose as their leaders, than this is not democratic.
       Anyway, having said all of this, though, I strongly believe that the opposition has to reunite, in order to have a better chance of defeating Jammeh
come October.  I don't have any ideas, as of now, as to how this can happen.  What I can say, though, is that there is going to have to be a lot of compromise,
a lot of give-and-take, and people, whoever they are, are going to have to put thier personal aspirations, as well as personal dislikes of whomever of
the candidates, on hold, at least until Jammeh is ousted.
     Once Jammeh is gone, Wa Juwara can castigate and malign Darboe all he wants.  Other members of NADD can set about "reforming the political process"
and "educating the electorate" all they want.  However, at this point, there is not enough time for all of that.  The goal of the opposition should be
to get rid of Jammeh, but it needs to be done in an transparent, honest, and forthright manner.  The ends do not justify the means, and fraudulent tactics
should not be used by the opposition to get a certain outcome, because if this happens, then the opposition will have been no better than the government
they are accusing of the same things and whom they are supposedly trying to oust.
     The bottom line is that both NADD and UDP/NRP want the same things for the Gambian people.  They may have different approaches and different ideas,
but they, I'd hope, have the best interests of the Gambian people at heart.  And for those of NADD and UDP/NRP who are only thinking of themselves, then,
whoever they are, this needs to stop right now!  Because at this point, the blame game should be over.  Because as long as the opposition is fighting each
other, then Jammeh has the upper hand and can thus rest easy at night.
     Is it * possible * for Jammeh to be beaten in 2006, minus a united oppostion?  Yes, it's * possible *.  Maybe it can be done.  But, Jammeh is more
likely to be beaten by a united opposition, than a divided one, and this seemed to be proven yesterday by the numbers.  If the Global Democracy Project
can bring the various opposition members back to the negotiating table, and thus, affect a reunification, this would indeed be a wonderful thing for the
Gambian people.  The question, though, is if this can be done.  If Lamin Wa Juwara's continuing accusations against Ousainou Darboe, which were made in
the Point Newspaper, are anything to go by, Ousainou Darboe is not the only one seemingly against a united opposition.  So, in trying to analyze what exactly
caused the NADD split, in order to then affect a reconciliation between UDP/NRP and NADD, the various members need to first be honest with themselves about
the situation in which they find themselves, and how it came about, in the first place.  Then, they may need to compromise on various aspects of the coalition
they are trying to put into place.  Also, as stated before, they need to put all personal gripes that they might have with the other members aside, at
least until the coalition has achieved the ultimate goal of ousting Jammeh.  And finally, what needs to be foremost in the minds of the coalition members,
is the needs and wants of the Gambian people.  The interests of the Gambian people need to come first and foremost, before anything else.  And this is
the most important thing that needs to happen.  Because, if you look at the numbers, the Gambian people seem to want change.  The majority of the votes
in the Kombo East election went to the opposition, not to the APRC.  This not only should serve as a lesson to "supposedly power-hungry Darboe and the
UDP/NRP", but the "I want to use the NADD platform as a forum for airing my personal grievances against Ousainou Darboe" Wa Juwara, as well.  Also, the
segment of the NADD members who believe in a "re-education of the Gambian electorate" may have to sleve that proposition until Jammeh is gone and there
is some sort of semblance of democracy and the rule of law put into place in The Gambia.
     What I'm saying is that compromise, respect for others' views, and the needs and interests of the Gambian people need to take center stage here, and
not the personal wants, needs, and interests of the opposition members.  Inshallah, that will happen.  In the meantime, I will continue to support the
UDP / NRP alliance (not that it matters 'cause I can't vote in a Gambian electionanyway), firstly, because they don't think "the Gambian people are just
too stupid to elect the right person".  And secondly, when fraudulent means were supposedly employed to select a flag-bearer for NADD, the UDP, and later
the NRP left the coalition as a result of this.  I have to respect that, especially since fraud should never be used by people purporting to be against
fraud employed by the current government.  As I said, the ends do not justify the means.  The opposition needs to take the high road in all of their dealings
with not only themselves, but the current ruling party, as well as the Gambian people.
     And on that note, I will end this.  I will continue to keep The Gambia and her people in my duas, and pray that the Gambian people will not have to
suffer through 5, not to talk of 30! more years of Jammeh.
     Before I leave, though, I want to thank the Gambians I met with in Nashville for their kindness toward me.  And I want to also thank Haruna Darboe
and Ousman Manjang for making the drive to Nashville from Atlanta to hear what the Nashville Gambian community had to say.
     Other than the disappointing loss of the opposition to the APRC in the Kombo East elections, it was a good afternoon.  Inshallah, my next visit will
be under better circumstances, and we can celebrate the ousting of Jammeh, whether it's NADD, UDP/NRP, or a coalition of the two.  Because when you get
right down to it, anything, even if it's my dog Abby elected as President, is better than Jammeh.

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