DARBOE SAYS BARROW’S ALLIANCE WITH APRC WAS KEY IN HIS BREAKUP WITH HIM
UDP leader Ousainu Darboe has told German broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) that President Adama Barrow’s alliance with the APRC party of former president Yahya Jammeh “was really the departing point” in his relations with him.
The alliance generated condemnation from a cross-section of victims and human rights actors who described it as a betrayal. But President Barrow and his surrogates pushed back against these criticisms in the run up to the 2021 elections saying the alliance was in the interest of reconciliation, security and peace of The Gambia.
“I want to tell the APRC that the whole country is happy about this alliance. It is the first time that parties that succeeded each other in power have all come to form one platform. It has never happened anywhere in the world except The Gambia and it is in the supreme interest of reconciliation, national security and stability,” Barrow said at the time.
But speaking to DW, Darboe accused the president of sacrificing principles on the altar of political expedience.
When asked about how he came to part ways with Barrow, Mr Darboe said: “President Barrow was not an outsider in the UDP. I believe distrust was engineered by some people who had vested interest in seeing that the way UDP saw things to happen, they made sure that it never happened that way. They tried to get in the former ruling party [APRC] as their allies and this was unacceptable to the genuine members of the UDP.”
He added: “Political convenience should not make you sacrifice principles. A party that you had fought against for 22 years, we find it incompatible to partner with them. It would be betrayal for those who over the years have sacrificed for the party, those who have endured torture and endured exile. We cannot really hobnob with such a party and I think this is really a departing point.”
Asked if he thought Barrow was either “unwilling or unable” to address the differences between them, Darboe replied: “I would not say it was impossible but I am not sure whether there was sincerity and genuineness on the part of President Adama Barrow.”
He pointed out that immediately after Barrow’s election in 2016, some of his “strongest political lieutenants” started peddling the idea that former presidents Jawara and Jammeh served for 30 years and over 20 years and so President Barrow should also be president for at least 15 years. “That was totally unacceptable to us because that was not the rationale of the coalition arrangements. The coalition agreement was that there should be a transitional government which prepare the ground for multiparty democracy to thrive in The Gambia, for the rule of law to take centre stage in the country,” Darboe said.
Mr Darboe stated he had a strong conviction that Barrow was the right leader to drive the change Gambians aspired for in 2016 but stated he did not live up to the promise “entrenching a leadership that has a hallmark of corruption and corruption.”
Source: The Standard
