Sister Jabou Joh and Brother Joe, I had no intention to get to this point in this exchange. It feels premature, because there is likely to be a gruesome period of soul-searching amongst Gambians after the coming elections. But I also fear that, akin to previous periods of post-election trauma, all of that may end up into nothing more than having therapeutic effect. I hope I will be proven wrong, in all counts. It is true that scrutiny is necessary. In normal circumstances, I would have joined the fray to lay bare every political attempt at power in Gambia even if that alone is hardly sufficient. But my sensibilites are affected by the believe that the project towards "unifying" the Opposition even after September 22 would be crucial for the evolution of participatory democracy in our country. I tend to think that our proclivites towards the state of the opposition coalititon and the political alignments that the elections would produce, dictates present individual preoccupations. Ideally, we should demand the best and should not lower our standards. But the very essence of a coalition gestures precisely towards reaching compromises on those qualities we hold as best and of higher standard; endearing us to construct a half-way house between idealism and realism. But as I said, if one believes that the process is dead, the field opens up for internecine struggles of all sorts, exposing what is worst in eachother's closet of ideas. This should be unproblemmatic in developed polities where the contest for power rages within the realm of ideas. But where other variables such as unprincipled rivalry, vanity, ethnic identity, acquisitiveness, fear and even populism sway voter sentiments greatly, violent criticism is often taken personally. The effect is that the prospects for a future confluence of opposition parties becomes more remote than formerly. And not only that! We all know the UDP, don't we? It has been around for the last ten years, and so to seek certainty about its intentions in an election manifesto is like aspiring to define the APRC from dictated fiction gleaned from its Vision 2020 document. The UDP, like all of Gambia's post independance political parties (except PDOIS) rides on varying doses of populism, nevermind its professed assimilation of neoliberal, social democratic values. When sometime before the 2001 elections, Hamjatta Kanteh marketted Mr. Ousainou Darboe on Gambia-L as a most patriotic Gambian who sacrificed everything to wage a struggle against the quasi-military tyranny, some of us scoffed at that sort of politcal commerce. Mr. Darboe, of course, deserves much respect, but the party he leads, I thought even then, came to be the natural abode of disgruntled politicians and businessmen made homeless by APRC purges of the PPP and NCP. It posesses neither the ideological conviction nor the organizational tradition to carry the struggle for power beyond mere protest against corruption and the excesses of an egoistic political elite feeding on the spoils of power. It cannot control and alter the role of institutions even if it assumes state power. This conclusion brings me to the reason I think the coalition is of major importance. Since its formation in the mid eighties, PDOIS behaved like a modern politcal apparatus. It recorded and archived all its ideas about governance, presented its opinion about all issues of national and regional significance, debated and defended its positions on these and operated consistently as an alternative government. Because it keeps records, and because it can date(!) national events it has opened up itself to probing and and can easily allow for transparency and more importantly, running an effective adminstration. One might not like Foroyaa, but one can remain confident that it provides a consistent and progressive source of political currency, even if one may not agree with it at all times. With sufficient resources, such a politcal apparatus can create and control a very strong organisation, even if such an organisation may not necessarily be democratric in character. (I cannot vouch for how decisions were reached inside PDOIS, thus my scepticism). It is this character of PDOIS as a modern, workable institution, that appeals to educated, young Gambians, perhaps because it rekindles a familiarity with structures. Informed Gambians who oppose it are, therefore, easily identifiable. As important as they are, I would refrain from mentioning the characters of its leaders, as these, unlike the nature of the organisation they represent, are transient. There has never been a political party with such administrative, organisational and political potential in our country, and these are the qualities with which it would have infused the character of a coalition of opposition parties. NADD could have evolved into a society-oriented politcal movement, i.e a political instrument that reorganises society as a way of changing the state; as opposed to a state-based politcal group - which have invariably failed everywhere in Africa. NADD could have forever altered the nature of politics in Gambia! NADD's failure to mature into what we had hoped for is of historic significance in a state as small as ours, and the responsibility for this failure, spreads more widely than many seem to think. To resuscitate NADD at time a time when the struggle for power is at its peak is simply more difficult than doing so after the elections. I think that effort should be pursued with even more vigour, and I do not think continued internecine squabble will help it. Cheers, sidibeh いいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいい 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] いいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいい