I posted this last night but it never got through. I hope for better luck this time, even my comment is not that important. ---------- From: Asbj鷨n Nordam <[log in to unmask]> Date: Wed, 25 Jan 2006 22:44:12 +0100 To: GAMBIA-LIST <[log in to unmask]> Subject: NADD, flag bearer , etc Friends, as a comment to the debate I will just put in the last few sections of my very very long comment on The Gambia, the presidential elections, campaigns etc, which I posted to the Gambia-l november 1., 2001 after returning from a one month stay. In the light of the contemporary political scenario I got the strong feeling of d嶴輁u, when I read my long comment once again, specially my opening remarks on the "game of political chess". History will teach us. Regards Asbj鷨n Nordam From my long letter of 1.11.01: (......) In my opinion the political process has to be continued and continuous. Jammeh, and other politicians from other parties said after the election, "that now the politics and the debates and discussions was over, and the rallies must stop".But that will be a mistake. If politics are only the few w eeks up to election every 5 years, the political education, and party-founding is not strong. A party and its politicians must work all days, all years round. A politician must go to see people at factories, students at institutes, farmers, fishermen, come to the market, the garage and out there in the compounds, the villages, the bush. Every day you must out and listen to the people, meet the people, talk, debate, form your ideas, politic, strategies, discuss, convince etc. New people - new ideas, and more entusiasm. In my opinion it is very important that a political party tries very hard to make a platform inside the party, where new, young politicians can learn, become trainees in the political business, can be tested and contested. They must out and meet the people, and see if they have any appeal. I think that both APRC, PDOIS but mostly UDP and PPP must try very hard to find a new generation of politicians, train them, make them well known, so they can step in and take over. The best thing a politician can do for his party is to create a platform, so younger talented people can step in, when the old ones step down. A politician who has been in the game for many years, must one day take a step backwards, and let people with new faces, new ideas, new energy take the first row. The elder is there to give advise, but he must understand, that even it愀 not the african tradition, an elderly leader must prepare for his successor. It愀 not that we don愒 respect the older man/woman, it愀 just that we think he/she has served well for many years and deserve to retire gradually, sit in the background and advise and let the new generation step in. The coming parliament election Soon after the Ramadan the campaign starts again. I don愒 know what the opposition parties will come up with, but I feel that APRC has got entusiasm by Jammehs reelection. The election can in my opinion very easily lead to a total majority for the APRC. Maybe I will comment on that later on. Under my stay I made other observations, and I will come back to them later. I wanted to concentrate on the election because the gambia-l has been full of comments and predictions on that. Regards from Asbj鷨n Nordam 中中中中中中中中中中中中中中中中中中中中中中中中中中中中中 To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/gambia-l.html To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/SCRIPTS/WA-ICORS.EXE?S1=gambia-l To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] 中中中中中中中中中中中中中中中中中中中中中中中中中中中中中