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Friday, March 29, 2024
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Political parties and Covid-19: Should it be business as usual?

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A pertinent question in this highly-charged health times when Covid-19 cases are threateningly galloping in the country at literally breakneck speed and the conduct of some of those political parties aspiring to run our affairs increasingly becoming unbecoming.

Just last month, at the zenith of a State of Public Health Emergency declared by the government as it attempted to stave-off Covid-19,officials of President Adama Barrow’s NPP were busy crisscrossing the country in its frantic efforts of putting together structures for the party through public consultations.

Two weeks or so ago, many roads led to the coastal town of Gunjur in Kombo South for another political get-together when NPP conducted a weekend political jamboree.

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Further inward into the inland, the conference hall of Baobab Holiday Resort in Bijilo was on Sunday literally filled to the rafters and bursting at seams when GDC brought under one roof multitudes of people said to have decamped Barrow’s untested NPP. Actually, the GDC leader convened the press conference to haul the recently-passed Local Government Amendment Bill over coal but however grabbed the opportunity of the prospects of the huge publicity by the presence of several journalists and cameras to showcase to his long-time political rival President Barrow that he’s taking the fight to his territory by winning new converts from his NPP.

Meanwhile few kilometers from where the GDC marshaled scores of supporters, another political party was also showing off its political assets in another coastal town, in number term actually. Professed sympathizers of GANU, which was recently topped up to the already long list of the country’s bona fide political parties, organized a public meeting in Brufut and in not a low-key fashion. Not forgetting the PPP, that elected a youth wing executive in WCR.

And instances of these kinds of political activities are now gaining currency when our Covid-19 cases have now alarmingly reached double digit.

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The question now arises: should it be business as usual in the face of a debilitating national and global health crisis?

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