By Omar Bah
The Secretary General of the People’s Democratic Organisation for Independence and Socialism yesterday explained why his party contest the by-elections in Niamina West and Kerr Jarga.
“We saw no wisdom in participating in these by-elections when we are building our ground all over the country to build the political weight of the party.
“We can only participate when we believe that we have made sufficient ground. As far as PDOIS is concerned, this is a period of building its support base and not a period of testing its weight. So PDIOS didn’t participate in these by-elections because it wants to test its weight after it has reached its zenith in its engagement and mobilisation of the people,” he said.
The Serekunda lawmaker said PDOIS “will continue to engage Gambians to move them away from the politics that divides them to convergences where they would engage in dialogue and debate on policies of political parties and try to convince each other on who to support in order to address their needs and aspirations.”
“If we do that, we will have a country united even if there is diversity but it will be a diversity that can lead into convergences through debate and dialogue towards enhancing our mind-sets. What happened in the two by-elections is precisely what happened in 2016 and that shows that we are at least building an electoral structure that can serve us,” he said.
He praised the spot counting but said the way the campaign was done demonstrates that the country is sliding back to the campaign of inducement.
