United
Democratic Party (UDP), the biggest opposition party in The Gambia, has
unveiled a 51-year-old businessman as its flag-bearer for the 1st December 2016
presidential elections.
UDP
revealed Adama Barrow as its presidential candidate during a press briefing at
the party’s secretariat in Banjul yesterday.
For
the first time since its formation in 1996, UDP has a flag-bearer different
from its founder and secretary general, Lawyer Ousainou Darboe, who is now
beyond the 60-year age limit for presidential candidates. He has contested and lost against the
incumbent in all the four presidential elections since 1996.
Lawyer
Darboe is currently serving a three-year jail term for unlawful assembly and
other similar charges for taking to the streets without a permit.
Dembo
Bojang, national president of UDP, said three candidates applied to succeed
Darboe as the flag-bearer, but Mr Barrow was elected by the overwhelming
majority of the party’s central committee.
Other
applicants were Abdou Darboe and Bun Jarjue.
In
his acceptance speech, Mr Barrow said:
“I stand before you, before the whole nation, in humility having been
honoured by my party, by the members of my party, by the entire Gambian people
in selecting me to carry the flag of the United Democratic Party to victory in
the forthcoming presidential elections.
“This
is a great responsibility, and I am accepting it with my unquestionable belief
in Allah, the Almighty, and the confidence and trust I have in the Gambian
people. I know the Gambian people are
yearning for change. They have done so
since 1996 and I believe that the time has come for that change.
“My
nomination is the first step [towards that change] and I know that with the
suffering that all Gambians irrespective of age, sex, religious or tribal
background, have experienced, we will bring about change in December.”
Mr
Barrow, who is also the acting treasurer of the party, further called on all
Gambians to be rededicated to “this noble task of salvaging” the country.
Opposition
unity on the agenda
Presently,
the loud cry among opposition sympathisers in The Gambia and diaspora is the
need for opposition parties to unite to achieve their common objective of
unseating President Yahya Jammeh in the polls, come December.
The
UDP flag-bearer has also reiterated such calls, saying all Gambians,
particularly leaders and members of the other sister parties, should get
together to remove the incumbent government in the polls.
“In
the coming days, I will be stretching my hands to other parties to come
together to form a single front,” Mr Barrow said. “It is a monumental task, but we owed it to
our country, to our leaders to do it and do it the right way.”
He
further added: “In the next few days, our executive and I would be contacting
our colleagues in the other parties and other interested groups with a view to
engaging in a dialogue that could lead to creating a conducive and feasible
arrangement that would lead to the defeat of this government.”
Who
is Adama Barrow?
According
to official version, Mr Barrow was born in 1965, the same year as President
Jammeh, in Basse. He did his primary
school education at Koba Kunda Primary School, then in 1981 he proceeded to
Crab Island Secondary Technical School where he sat to the Secondary School
Leaving Certificate Examinations.
From
Crab Island, Mr Barrow proceeded to Muslim High School from 1985 to 1988.
He
is said to have spent most of his adult life in Banjul under the guardianship
of the famous Alhaji Momodou Musa Njie, who introduced him to business which he
does up to now.
His
political career started with the formation of the UDP in 1996. He was an ordinary, but vocal member of the
party in his native constituency of Jimara in the Upper River Region
(URR).
In
2010, he was appointed coordinator of the UDP URR committee by the party’s
national executive. In 2006, he was
appointed deputy treasurer to the national executive committee.
For
the past three years, he has been the acting treasurer of the party. He has extensively travelled to England and
Germany.
He
was the UDP’s contestant for the 2007 parliamentary election in his native
Jimara consistency, but lost to Mamma Kandeh who has now formed a new political
party called Gambia Democratic Congress (GDC).
Mr
Barrow obtained 2,835 votes while Kandeh who was contesting for the ruling APRC
party by then got 4,067 votes.
With
exactly three months to the 1 December election, opposition parties are
announcing the flag-bearers for the election.
Halifa
Sallah has been announced as the flag-bearer of the People’s Democratic
Organisation for Independence and Socialism (PDOIS), Dr Lamin Bolong Bojang for
the National Convention Party (NCP), and now Mr Barrow for the UDP.
Three
independent candidates are known for now: Lawyer Joseph Joof, former Justice
minister in the Second Republic, and women’s rights defender Dr Isatou Touray.
