Ginny, your message is very clear and it is good that
you are standing by your words. Lets no amount of
"Bala bala"....distract your position in supporting
the UDP/NRP Alliance which is the strongest opposition
Alliance in the country today.

Please, i am appealing to you, do not answer any
irrelevant question that would open the opposition old
wounds. The selection process has passed and we all
know what happened. We want to look for better ways to
come up with good ideas and i have no doubt that you
have some how to build a stronger force against the
APRC in the coming weeks.

I am saying irrelevant questions simply because if you
want to waste your time on how Dulo Bah who was a
delegate for Hamat Bah-NRP end up nominating OJ while
he was sent to nominate Darboe according to the NRP
executive, one would come to the conclusion that
something was wrong at the selection process.

Ginny,let's move on.

Saihou    


   

--- Ginny Quick <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> 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 
=== message truncated ===


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