Now that Gabriel Roberts has unashamedly acknowledged in public that he is impotent, the little confidence the Opposition Parties reposed on him has been compromised. Clearly this man cannot be trusted to do what is right in the coming elections. If this nonentity continues to run the show at the IEC, the Opposition Parties should NOT even continue to meet with him. What man with influence will agree one thing with the Parties, and then renege on his word the moment he talks to Yaya and Yaya offers a contrary view? Can this man be trusted on Election Day to announce results that would show that Yaya lost the elections? Ten-year-old Gambians know that Gabriel Roberts will NOT do that. To facilitate their task to rig the elections, they (APRC and Roberts) want to centralize the vote counting. That way ballot boxes can be tampered with as they are moved from polling stations to regional centers where the votes should be counted. Centralizing the counting will also ensure that fewer people will have to be corrupted in order to announce bogus results for Yaya. The shenanigans of these vermin is so transparent that it is laughable. The Opposition Parties did good by walking out on the APRC crony. He is at his position for one reason only: to RIG elections for Yaya. As a follow-up, the Parties should refuse to deal with Roberts until everyone is convinced that the man is potent. If he has to clear every significant decision with Yaya, then why deal with the nonentity? Let us go straight to Yaya and deal with him. Dealing with Gabriel Roberts just adds 'legitimacy' to the whole process and makes things appear as if we are in a democratic environment. This is a Dictatorship where Yaya is the only one making the major decisions. Let us not compromise on this issue. If the votes are not counted at the polling stations, then we should not participate in the elections. If Gabriel Roberts continues in this cronyism, we should not participate in the elections. Do people think that on Election Day if Gabriel Roberts goes to Yaya to 'clear' the results, Yaya will 'allow' Roberts to declare results that will say that Yaya lost? To show that he is indeed independent of Yaya, Roberts has to deliver on this 'vote counting' issue and other vital issues affecting the campaigns (such as media access). Roberts also has to address the 'challenges' to the voter registers. If Roberts does NOT address these matters favorably, the Opposition should boycott the elections and prepare their supporters to go and flush Yaya out of the State House when his mandate expires in October. KB _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask] if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------