By Omar Bah
Kebba Drammeh, a defeated candidate for the People’s Democratic Organisation for Independence and Socialism (PDOIS) in the recent local council elections has accused the UDP and GDC of giving out money in return for votes.
Speaking to The Standard yesterday in an exclusive interview, Drammeh who lost to UDP in Niani Kuntaur Ward, alleged that the United Democratic Party’s NAM in Niani constituency took loans from GTBank and distributed it among the villagers to get their votes.
“This is just to tell you that UDP did not win the election in Kuntaur Ward based on support. They won because they bribed the poor voters in the area in return for their votes,” he alleged.
Drammeh further alleged that in villages of Wassu, the UDP NAM distributed cooking pots to women groups three days before the election.
“I’ve confirmed this myself from a reliably source in the village, whose wife benefitted from the gesture. These are not mere allegations but facts and he tried similar things during the national assembly election for the women of Sait Maram and Faraba Sutu, but they refused to vote for him,”Drammeh alleged.
He further alleged that the UDP gave out D10, 000 to all the villages in Bani Ward in the Sami Constituency.
Turning to the GDC, the defeated PDOIS candidate Drammeh alleged that GDC too has given a lot of money to Sait Maram village, Kataba and host of other villages just to gain their votes in the buildup to the election.
He said going by the campaign, there was no way the UDP and GDC could have beaten PDOIS if they did not dish out money to the electorate.
Meanwhile The Standard tried but could not get hold of the Niani NAM but a UDP official familiar with the area said Mr Drammeh is better advised to respect himself and accept his defeat in good faith.
“Even his attitude, throwing accusations without concrete evidence goes against the principle of PDOIS. I am sure even PDOIS will not be proud of him on this matter. I think he is abusing his freedom of speech,” the UDP man concluded.
MC Cham Jnr of GDC, in response, said Mr Drammeh must have missed the point. “The GDC does not believe in money politics. What we do is take development projects to the people in every community to improve their livelihood. That is GDC,” Cham concluded.
