By Da One
I don’t think the People’s Democratic Organization for Independence and Socialism (PDOIS) should put its legacy and reputation on the line for a short-term solution to a perennial problem. The problems are political opportunism, hunger for power, the readiness to abuse and misuse power, self-perpetuation, populism, political elitism, and you name it.
Halifa Sallah pioneered the formation of the coalition of political parties that ushered in regime change. The documents of the agreement that solidified the pact have the name PDOIS written all over them, from conception to execution. When the coalition began to disintegrate because of non-adherence to the terms of the contract, many ill-informed citizens pounced on PDOIS or Halifa Sallah to throw in all kinds of unsavory accusations. Today, we are witnessing the symptoms not the sickness itself of the above-mentioned political maladies that have kept Gambia in its seemingly inescapable status of a third-world country.
The person initiating the supposed 11th April coalition survival meeting is none other than the former Vice President under whose very watch, some political leaders went to work to make sure nothing is left of the well-thought-out-agreement that would have set the foundation for The Gambia to have a fresh start for freedom and prosperity.
The burning question is why now? The answer is very obvious. Uncertainty. There are credible and justified intentions from many civilian quarters for protests and demonstrations for the president to step down at the end of his agreed three-year mandate. Several things remain unknown for now as to the nature and scope of such an expression of discontent with the government. No matter what the outcome of such a movement might be, it promises to shake the status quo to a point of no return. To shield the upper class of society — who by design get all their privileges from the underclass — from a change of system, Fatoumatta Tambajang and her supporters are bent on seeing an incompetent president rule beyond his three-year mandate. They are sweet talking us into hell, for Adama and his cronies would be so entrenched at the end of five years, that they will demand a second term for him. How are we keeping our politicians accountable to their own words?
The best outcome Gambians can hope from this meeting will be for all political parties to unanimously ask Adama to step down at the end of his three-year term. This will preserve the little trust and integrity that is left in the political field of Gambian politics. But that result will be very unlikely because of the various interest groupings that exist within.
Adama and his minions will very likely dig in their feet with the argument that they have started projects (whatever those are), that they need to finish before leaving office. Ousainou Darboe’s camp will likely not contradict him on his argument of a five-year term based on a flawed interpretation of the constitution.
Isatou Touray’s camp is not expected to be insubordination to the wishes of Adama. Mai Fatty, Hamat Bah, Henry Gomez are hard cases to predict because of their unreliability with matters on party policy. Omar (OJ) Jallow might be the only one to play hardball for Adama to step down. PDOIS will show they are not hungry for power by not aligning with any position. The Gambia will lose once again big time until we all step up and ask the government to prepare for handing over power in 2020.