By Kaddy Jawo
The leaders and shareholders of the Coalition 2016 on Saturday held a closed-door meeting at Kairaba Beach Hotel to assess the grand opposition coalition that brought President Adama Barrow to power almost three years ago.
The meeting is spearheaded by Fatoumatta Jallow-Tambajang, Former Vice President and founding member of the Coalition 2016. Speaking to journalists shortly before the commencement of the meeting, she said the key issues expected to be discussed by the stakeholders is the question of whether President Barrow should step down at the end of three years or if he should serve a five-year term. Tambajang said, that “the issue of three or five years is also going to be discussed here and so many elements will be considered and afterwards, we will send the communiqué to the president which will entail the conclusion on issues at stake.”
The meeting comes amidst political bickering among the coalition stakeholders mainly over the content of its agreements in the run up to the 2016 election.
Tambajang said the Coalition has never been broken and that the Coalition has been meeting since couple of months after the elections.
“We have been meeting internally with the stakeholders periodically to discuss issues and matters of the state in terms of reform programs,” she said.
Omar (O.J.) Jallow of Peoples Progressive Party (PPP) told journalists that the idea behind the meeting “is to revive the coalition again and then try to work on the principles and programs of what we agreed on before.”
On the contentious issue of whether President Barrow should serve for a three- or five-year term, O.J. maintained his position that the president should step down after three years. He however said he was opened to further discussion based on the outcome of the meeting.
“We said three years but now if the coalition decides on something else we will all discuss it. We’ll look at the pros and cons and then when we arrive at an agreement, we’ll make pronouncement.”
Meanwhile, the People’s Democratic Organization for Independence and Socialism (PDOIS) did not attend the talks today. Tambajang’s claimed that the Coalition never disintegrated and have been in consultation since after it emerged victorious in the December 2016 election contradicts claims made by Halifa Sallah, the Secretary General of the PDOIS party, who while in a tour in United States in March last year, alleged to The Times that the coalition never met and was then no longer in existence to discuss anything since winning that election to the date he made the statement. Sallah’s statement came as a clarification on the misunderstanding by many in the public that changes to the electoral laws before the National Assembly elections in 2017 were decided by the coalition partners. He added that, on the contrary, the decision was made by all the political parties — both in the Coalition 2016 partnership and in opposition — in a group called the Interparty Committee.
The United Democratic Party (UDP) was represented by the deputy party leader Aji Yam Secka.The talks are planned to resume on Monday the 15th, March 2019 at 10 AM prompt.