Brother Abdu, You wrote: Any individual following the history of fragility of NADD will agree with me that sensational journalist is the attribution of the break down of that coalition. As I always say, anyone who is presenting themselves as a potential leader of a country and who either takes personally or cannot withstand criticism both by the media and by the general public who have a right to scrutinize them needs to excuse us and go find another trade. We cannot use sensational journalism as the excuse to abandon or embark on a cause or make a decision that eventually betrays the people. What was at stake was too great and required the resolve of true leaders who can do the right thing and make the right decisions who can never be distracted from the importance of that goal by anything or anyone. Therefore, people who are so easily distracted have no place in it. So let us put that excuse aside. We do not need basket cases as potential leaders. To paraphrase a famous American leader, If they cannot withstand the heat, they must get out of the kitchen. As Laye Jallow already pointed out, "This is what democracy is all about. It is the voice of those who participated that matters at the end of the day even if their decision is the worst for the majority" The fact of the matter is that those people who stayed home and failed to vote and some of those who went over to the APRC were disillusioned by the breakup of the original coalition, period! and it is time to accept that as opposed to cooking up all manner of excuses as the reason when everyone knows the reason. The UDP lost ground with some of their supporters who were angry that they left the coalition and that is why they were able to pull only 27% of the vote despite their union with the NRP and GDP and Hamat Bah likewise lost supporters because of the same reason plus various other issues and nothing else. This exercise of engaging in all manner of feel good exercises rather that calling a spade a spade are some of the very reasons that the UDP lost some of their support base. They insisted on feeding the people various and sundry excuses that seemed to change from one day to the next as to why they left the coalition, when the people knew better and it looks like they still have not learnt a lesson. Where are the thinkers and strategists in this party? If those who made a mistake cannot asses themselves and do the right thing so we can regroup, Yaya Jammeh will be there for the 40 years he promises Gambians. It is like a drug addict, unless they can come to terms and admit the fact that they are addicted and want and need help, no amount of therapy can help them kick the habit. It is time to set aside the excuses and do a retrospective in order to move forward and those who fail to do that will forever be lost in self delusion and Jammeh stays where he is to the detriment of our people. It is a recurring problem that will not go away and has to be answered and acted upon if we are to get rid of the menace of Yaya Jammeha and that is whether one is motivated by a quest for individual and partisan power or the interest of the people as a whole. The Gambian people are waiting for that answer and whoever does not want to come to terms with that fact is a part of our problems. Jabou Joh 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