Conflicting signals are riginating from key members of the opposition coalition on when to unveil President Jammeh's main challenger in the 2006 presidential polls, with one indicating that their candidate would be named by Christmas, while another suggested that it was besides the issue.

In separate interviews with The Independent, which suggested that they might not have been reading from the same hymn sheet, Lamin Waa Juwara and Halifa Sallah made conflicting statements about when the coalition's flag-bearer for the next elections would be disclosed. According to Mr. Juwara, the coalition will have been set to unveil their candidate before the end of the year. "The whole leadership structure would be clear by Christmas" he said.

However in a fundamental shift of emphasis, Halifa Sallah, the coalition?s coordinator said, "the issue for us is not about time, it is still all about the procedure to select a candidate for the 2006 elections. We are currently debating on the selection ground rules. Once we agree on these rules, we can start the process of selecting an ultimate leader. In the meantime it is premature to start talking about a candidate when the modalities for selecting him are still being debated by members." In denying assertions that there was an identity crisis within the opposition alliance, Honourable Sallah said, it was an agreeable and healthy sign that its members are still talking and consulting among themselves about the best possible way forward.

Honourable Sallah said they are not hastening the search for a winnable candidate because the leaders of the parties that have come together to plot the APRC's political downfall "are not in a hurry and are not desperate to do so." According to him there was never any sign of division as suggested by reports last months quoting the National Reconciliation Party (NRP) leader as referring to some difficult sticking points in reaching an identity of views about who their flag-bearer was going to be. Honourable Sallah said it was a figment of their detractor's imagination that there is a leadership crisis within the coalition. "The coalition does not revolve around one man or a selected group within it. We are engaging each other in fruitful discussions, where tribal or personality conflict have no place" he added. According to him there is a sincere attempt to put the national interest before personal ones and that party leaders are irrevocably committed to the process that could usher in change by way of an alliance, offering better advantages for democracy than the current dispensation has been prepared to make possible. "It is not an easy task, because it is a very difficult agenda by different leaders with different orientation," he acknowledged, before adding: "But we are pleased that the fundamental reason keeping the coalition together is not lost to any one of us" he pointed out. On whether an outsider would be allowed to lead the coalition's election bid in 2006, Honourable Sallah said obliquely that it was possible but would also largely depend on the ground rules.

Lamin Waa Juwara, meanwhile said his National Democratic Action Movement (NDAM) would remain an integral part of any "ground-breaking" process towards building a "formidable" opposition alliance in time to dislodge the ruling APRC government from power in the 2006 polls. Juwara said the coalition is determined to successfully chart a fresh new course for The Gambia and Gambians, where democracy would be given a clean bill of health and the economy would be revived. He indicated that ten years of misrule by the APRC administration must end as it increasingly dawns on citizens that the current dispensation has set the economic track years backwards, restricted and conditioned the culture of free expression and stifled the political climate. According to him the government has only succeeded in its programme of impoverishment and revels in reducing citizens to pitiable recipients of charity from its members.

"We are not a happy proposition for the ruling party but after years of unsatisfactory governance, which is characterised by gross human rights abuse and a negation of our democratic credential, the opposition coalition has emerged as a welcome reality come to rectify everything that went wrong. We are here to uproot the seeds of discord and restore Gambian pride with all its glorious shine," he posited.