The deputy spokesman of the APRC has greeted the election results with very little surprise.
According to Dodou Jah, the APRC had always known that their five Foñi seats could be in danger because of the events that engulfed the area in recent months and the general perception of the people there that government is doing nothing about their concerns. ”And because of our political relationship with the governing party, the voters naturally punished us by rejecting our candidates for the No Alliance group,” he said. He however explained that the rival APRC faction has campaigned on a promise that they cannot deliver.
”They promised the people of Foñi that they will remove Ecomig soldiers from there and bring back Jammeh which they cannot do,” Jah said.
Asked if that was not the same message his group had been promising since 2017, Jah said the APRC has at least tried to engage the president on many issues including the fate of Jammeh and even persuaded Barrow to visit Kanilai as well as getting the government to consider removing soldiers from his house.
”But we all know how Jammeh himself came out to derail all that. So we have tried and so I don’t think the No Alliance can do more than that and soon the Foñi people will realise it,” he said.
On the poor showing of the NPP, Mr Jah said the party did not do much collaboration with its coalition partners in this election unlike the presidential election and that is why they failed in many areas. “In fact, we have wanted to contest more areas than the 7 they allowed us and like we did in Jeshwang and Bundung, we could have won more. We have told the NPP that without APRC the danger of UDP getting strong again is there and that is what happened,” he said.
He said the results did not also show that the No Alliance is a big force. “It is only Foñi that they can win because of the circumstances I described above. They contested in more places than us but where else have they won apart from Foñi?” he asked.
