By Amadou Jadama
The Leader of PDOIS, Halifa Sallah has said it’s only Gambians and not necessarily coalition members who should come out and speak to President Adama Barrow and the other coalition partners as to what is their thinking on this three-year term, because they are the owners of the country.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with The Standard Friday, Halifa, a leading figure in the formation of the Coalition, said it does not make sense to expect that the people who have been sacked from the government will be able to dictate to Barrow what he should do.
”What is clear is that what we anticipated from the Coalition arrangement has been put aside.
The agenda was not what Barrow is going to deliver to us, or what types of development.
The issue was to change the regime and then the regime that comes in would be a transitional regime that would engage in constitutional reform, civil service reform, judiciary reform, security sector reform and other reforms, and also to have TRRC in order to heal the wounds of the victims.
So collectively it would have been like managing the presidency so that nobody would look at a party as you become Cabinet Minister.
In the National Assembly too nobody will think about a party, but about the agenda of the country.
So there would be a uniformity between the cabinet and the National Assembly on an agenda and the person who is the leader would be there for three years and then resign,” Sallah said.
But he said this has been put aside.
“So if people pursued their partisan interest, we must face the consequences and ask ourselves what strategies and tactics are we to adopt now to address the future”, he noted.
When asked why his party failed to grace the recent coalition talks,’ he responded: “The talks that we initiated and participated in have actually reached an agreement which is the Coalition agreement.
So if you come to a point where one was to roll back to that agreement, we cannot participate in such process.
“For us, the issue is not about five years or three years. That is left to the people to go and ponder about.
So now if Barrow leaves in three years, and we still have this constitution where the vice president will serve the rest of the terms, what are we really achieving?” he said.
“So what strategies and tactics are to be adopted is left to the Gambians as they are the owners of The Gambia, and they should start talking to their leaders”.
