Halifa Sallah, the former spokesman for the coalition that defeated Yahya Jammeh in the December 2016 presidential election, said President Adama Barrow’s legacy is a three-year transition government as agreed to by all members of Coalition 2016. Sallah said they anticipated a three-year transition for President Barrow and if he were to serve “more than three years in office, that will no longer be a legacy but an abrogation of his legacy.” He added that the “legacy was to put an end to self-perpetuating rule, and to do it in such a way that it will be defining for the country.” The presidency, he noted, has a “mandate for five years” but all those who took part in creating the coalition knew the conditionality before agreeing to participate in the presidential selection process. He pointed out that Mama Kandeh, of the Gambia Democratic Congress (GDC), knew the conditionality of a three-year transition program put forth by Coalition 2016, precisely did not agree to them and subsequently withdrew from the process.
Sallah made this remark in an exclusive interview with The Gambia Times in collaboration with Eye Africa TV. He is in Seattle at the end of his U.S. tour, where he has given lectures, talks and seminars at the University of Ohio in Athens, and the University of Washington in Seattle. These lectures were sponsored by the Department of Political Science and the African Studies Program in both universities. Sallah also attended town-hall meetings with Gambians in major U.S. metropolises in Dallas, Texas; San Francisco, California; and Seattle, Washington.
Sallah’s remarks came shortly after President Barrow’s latest statement on the time he would spend in office. Speaking to a Turkish Television station last month, Barrow said the amount of destruction he found in the State House was more than he’d anticipated and that would take more than three years or even two terms in office to solve. Barrow, however, did not say whether he would be the president to solve those problems. The question of whether he would serve for only three years in office has lingered since Barrow took office. In his first press conference upon return from exile in Senegal, where he was sworn into office after winning the presidential election, Barrow said the time he will spend in office would be left for Gambian people to decide. But how exactly for the people to determine he did not say.
In March 2016, the length on Barrow’s term in office surfaced in the public rancor between members of the coalition when Ousainou Darboe the Minister of Foreign Affairs and leader of the United Democratic Party—a man Barrow called his political father—said he would personally file a lawsuit in court if anyone insist that Barrow must serve for only three years in office. Darboe argued that the three-year transition agreement stroke behind him by the coalition partners while he was serving three-year sentence in jail was a connivance of private citizens to violate the constitution.
Speaking earlier on whether Barrow should serve only for three years, Fatoumata Tambajang the Vice President stated that “A three-year agreement has been signed but we will enter new talks so we can extend the three years to a full-five year to conform with the Constitution” of The Gambia. Tambajang’s statement was considered by many observers as a signal that Barrow intends to serve for five years and run for the presidency again. She made her statement at a time Barrow was celebrating one year in office with activities to consolidate power around him by creating the Barrow Youth Movement, the Barrow Foundation, and Fatou Bah-Barrow Foundation — moves that many critics saw as similar to the methods Yahya Jammeh deployed parallel state institutions to perpetuate himself in office.
In the interview with The Gambia Times, Sallah said that “it’s important for all those people who participated in the process to bear in mind that they chose to accept the rules and that they had every right to go out of the process.” He said that they will “continue to remind the head of state of the importance of the process and the importance of the legacy because the legacy is really to show a group of people could come together to effect change that did not serve them—a change that really serves the next political leaders.” Sallah said that their role is to continue to guide the process so that what they agreed to is actually adhered; and that they would not speculate but would wait until after the three years to see whether what they had agreed to have been done. He said the way they engage Barrow now is fundamentally different from the way they will “if another decision is made” to serve more than three years in office. If Barrow made the decision to stay beyond what the coalition agreed, then he would have become a president for a full term and must justify the reason for being there and must be accountable for the economic, health among many other conditions of the country.
This new stand by Sallah is different from some of his earlier publicly stated position on the three-year transition agreement. In the past, he had said that if Barrow wants to go beyond the three-year agreement, he must go to the people to explain to them. He had made “it very clear that PDOIS doesn’t take this as an issue. Whatever decision President Barrow takes is left to him,” and that his party was “not planning to take to the street to protest against any decision he takes on this issue.”
Echoing his new position on the three-year transition later in the Seattle town-hall meeting on Saturday, he said if President Barrow insists on serving more than the three-year term agreed by the Coalition 2016, then the administration will be a normal government coming into being; and that a normal government must be criticized for any suffering of the people and failing to address it. The government must accept responsibility; and that duty, he said, must go with responsibility. Sallah insisted that any sense of responsibility must also go with accountability. Buttressing his argument further, he added that if Barrow wants to take a five-year mandate, he must be able to deliver five-year expectation or otherwise he’d have failed. The role of a transitional government is to stabilize the economy and maintain internal security, but not to solve all problems of the country, he added.
Sallah also noted that the Coalition 2016 no longer exists as the only thing that is left of it is President Barrow as a symbol. The coalition as a body never held a meeting to carry its agenda after the government was constituted. Many people hold the mistaken view that the coalition met to initiate the amendments to the electoral laws in March 2016 before the National Assembly elections. He clarified that the agreement to change the electoral laws was done by the Interparty Committee of all the political parties in the country. Since after the election and coming into office of Barrow administration, the coalition did not meet to discuss any agenda for the country, or to discuss the implementation of its program. Sallah said the public dispute before the National Assembly elections on the strategy to contest those elections as independent candidates versus candidates representing their respective parties ended the coalition effectiveness as it was originally envisaged to accomplish. Elaborating on the coalition that it’s no longer serving as the instrument it was intended for, Sallah said the “coalition became a casualty during the National Assembly elections” and added that “the only element of the coalition which must now be recognized is the president.” Sallah said the president therefore should adhere to the agreement of the coalition, and maintain his independence, continue to work in solidarity with its members and consult with civil society for a democratic transformation of The Gambia.