Opposition Gambia Moral Congress leader Ahmad Mai Fatty told this paper on Monday that after twenty years of hostile relations, there is a need for a “seismic shift” in relations between the ruling APRC party and the opposition.
Speaking to The Standard in an exclusive interview yesterday, Ousainou Darboe said such calls for the opposition and the ruling party to sit down and talk “is nothing new…. In fact, we already have an inter-party committee (IPC) which is a forum at which political parties meet and exchange ideas and discuss how parties behave towards each other in a civil way, how parties are tolerant to each other.”
Mr Darboe said it was not a bad idea for the inter-party committee to be regenerated. “We already have it in place; all that needs to be done is to revive it. That is what we believe in, and that is what all political parties should believe in and embrace with sincerity, honesty, commitment, passion and devotion. After all, what we want is a true democratic dispensation and that is what the IPC was there for,” he argued.
He went on: “But unfortunately, the APRC scuttled its functions. I remember when it was first established, it was co-chaired by Yankuba Touray and Halifa Sallah. Initially it started working well and we met regularly and exchanged ideas and agreed on a lot of things that should be done to promote true democratic culture, the culture of tolerance. In one of our meetings which was attended by Foday Makalo, they made it quite clear that they are not going to accept what we were putting forward. Mr Gabriel Roberts was the IEC chairman at the time, and then the very good, brilliant idea [of the IPC] was scuttled.”
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