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Momodou
Denmark
11835 Posts |
 Posted - 26 Sep 2006 : 14:39:56
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FOROYAA EDITORIAL:
THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF AN ERA IN GAMBIAN POLITICS
It is an irony that the APRC regime changed the constitution to eradicate the second round of voting because of the fear that it could not get 50% of the votes cast in the first round. Now it is said to have won 67% of the votes in the first round.
What is responsible for this?
In the 2001 Presidential elections President Jammeh has 242,304 votes. Despite the fact that 94,000 voters were added in the register in 2006 alone he has managed to increase his popular vote by 22,000 to 264,473.
Needless to say, the Register of voters now contains 670,336 voters. However, only 392, 685 voters voted.
NADD had 23,473 votes which constitutes 6% of the votes.
Despite the support of the NRP and GPDP the UDP vote declined from 149,448 votes in 2001 to 104,808 votes in 2006. This tends to give the impression that UDP could not serve as a vanguard for all the other parties to unite around to dislodge Jammeh.
It is now time for opposition parties to go back to the drawing board.
It is very clear from the results that the voters were concentrating on UDP and APRC. In their campaign the UDP emphasized that if the voters in the opposition cast their vote for NADD they are casting it for the APRC meaning that they will help the APRC to win. The APRC also told their supporters that if they cast their votes for NADD they will help the UDP to win. Now that NADD had only 6 percent of the votes it could not serve as a decisive factor on either side. Hence one cannot say the NADD vote prevented the UDP from winning the elections. The Gambian people should now begin to look for a new instrument to be able to bring about change. The old instrument has proven to be ineffective.
This is a time for people to identify a sober leadership among the opposition to unite around to give direction and significance to opposition politics and move away from tribally motivated notions.
Source: FOROYAA Newspaper Burning Issue
Issue No. 81/2006, 26 - 26 September, 2006
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kobo
United Kingdom
7765 Posts |
Posted - 26 Sep 2006 : 17:02:58
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Thanks Momodou. Thas another challenge for ALL OPPOSITION PARTIES AND SYMPATHISERS (STGDP) to consider with news resolutions, strategies and visions on Gambian democracy for empowerment, freedom, education and development.
REFORMS are called for on NADDS camp and hopefully UDP/NRP/GPDP Alliance would pledged their genuine support to participate and salvage the blunders already done.
The big wigs or old vetran politics should also be prepared to give way to new breed of politicians.
Its proper democracy thats being nortured and leadership requires maturity (i.e another advanced stage) and we expects to see diplomacy and mutual respect for the opposition to negotiate on neutral platform.
Good luck to them!
PEACE AND PROGRESS! |
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