In an interview with Peter Gomez of West Coast Radio on Thursday, 21st August, former Vice President, Madam Fatoumatta Tambajang, told Peter Gomez that in her endeavour to bring opposition leaders together in a coalition, she went individually to each party leader for consultation.
Peter Gomez asked her: “Who was the toughest to convince?”
Her response was: “The toughest to convince was PDOIS.”
Peter Gomez: “Really?”
Madam Fatoumatta Tambajang: “Yes.”
She added that they thought that they were in a better position to lead the country but in the end, they decided to come.
Halifa Sallah was approached for his response, and he said the following:
Gambian political leaders should speak about their own effort on coalition building and leave others to speak about their own efforts on coalition building. Just like 2016 many people are talking about coalition building today.
Before 2016 the people in the Diaspora made many efforts to take opposition leaders to the United Kingdom or United States for coalition talks. They could have claimed to have made efforts. The youths of UDP, PPP, and NRP did try to form their own coalition, which ended in the death of Solo Sandeng and the incarceration of the UDP leader.
It needs to be emphasised that PDOIS and my very self never accepted to participate in any initiative that former Vice President, Madam Tambajang launched in coalition building, because she was neither a presidential candidate nor a party representative. He could not account for any achievement she made in her attempt to build a coalition. We could not pose any difficulty in the pursuit of any initiative that didn’t merit our participation.
What I can account for is how Coalition 2016 started and what it achieved. The Coalition went through five stages
The first stage was initiated by me as a PDOIS presidential candidate who was mandated to meet all the presidential candidates at Kairaba Beach Hotel to determine whether a flagbearer could be selected from our numbers to contest the 2016 presidential election.
I am the only one who can account for the commencement of this initiative and its achievement.
The second stage of coalition building that led to the establishment of Coalition 2016 was to request Mr Dembo Bojang of the UDP to convene a meeting of GOFER, which was a platform created by the opposition parties for electoral reform so that they will determine the modalities of how to select those presidential candidates who participated in the first phase to be a flagbearer for the opposition.
The third phase that led to the establishment of Coalition 2016 is the reaching of an agreement for each opposition party to select 70 delegates, ten from each region, who would serve as an electoral college to select one of the presidential candidates to be the flagbearer.
The fourth stage is the signing of the Coalition Agreement to establish Coalition 2016 and build its institutions and modalities.
The fifth stage was to hold a convention to select a flagbearer.
The rest is history, which is clearly explained in a book I will soon publish, which is entitled ‘The Impasse’.
Hence to conclude, I can assert and affirm with certainty that I am the only one who can fully account for the first stage and both Mr Dembo Bojang and I can account for the second stage and the rest of the Coalition members can account for the remaining stages.
I hope the great work that the team had done to bring about change through the ballot box for the first time in the history of The Gambia could not be trivialized by giving inaccurate reports that may lead to contestation over facts. I am promising the Gambian people that a holistic presentation of what really happened in 2016 would soon be available to all those who want to know the truth and nothing but the truth of what happened in 2016 in good faith in the public interest.
