By Tabora Bojang
The leader of the opposition People’s Democratic Organisation for Independence and Socialism PDOIS Suwaibou Touray, has described President Adama Barrow’s recent daring of opposition leaders to face him individually instead of a group, as a sign of “worry, fear and desperation”, because he knew very well what that means since he himself came to power through a united opposition.
Last week, Barrow said if each of the opposition leaders trust they can beat him, then let them contest as individuals instead of a joint team.
In response, the PDOIS leader said he was “very surprised” about the president’s remarks, because this was not his thinking when opposition parties came together to put him up as a candidate against Jammeh in 2016.
“In 2016, Barrow, like all of us, had the belief that unless we have a formidable coalition of different parties, we will not be able to beat Jammeh. And it is the same feeling again because the Gambia’s election system has no absolute majority principle so even the most unpopular president can win by a simple majority against majority votes shared between other candidates,” Mr Touray said.
He lamented that the system is also helped by village heads, district chiefs, governors, managers and directors who are often intimidated and threatened and so they are all competing to fit in the system to keep their jobs.
”Just look at how they threatened a village head during this ongoing voter registration exercise. So in a situation like this, we need to have all the opposition parties together so that all the opposition votes will be in one box to be able to bring about change,” Swaebou Touray told The Standard. The PDOIS leader added that since the presidency in this country depends largely on patronage and winner-takes-all system, the absence of unity in the opposition means they are going to share remaining votes from that of the incumbent.
“Our ultimate objective is that when we bring change we will be able to bring the absolute majority principle, and term limits to make our democracy better. But in this current situation, the first thing is that we need to come together to be able to change the government, and in fact the only way Gambia has ever changed a government in history, was through an opposition coalition,” he observed.
He further advised that parties and politicians have tried to run against incumbents individually but it never worked. “Sheriff Dibba of the NCP was very popular but he could not bring about change because apart from him there were other opposition candidates from PDOIS, GPP and others, and separately, none had a chance against Sir Dawda Jawara. It happened again under Jammeh until the opposition were able to unite in 2016 to bring him down,” he said.
He said the product of that coalition victory, Adama Barrow, is today worried that the same method would be used to end his regime.
“He is worried and fearful. And knowing the person he is, he must be going to marabouts now to seek for prayers so that the opposition will never agree on one candidate, ” Touray teased.
