The
President-elect, Adama Barrow, has issued a statement responding to President
Yahya Jammeh’s New Year Message on some “salient points” of note.
The
statement of response is as follows:
STATEMENT
FROM THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT-ELECT 1st January 2017
Outgoing
President Jammeh has issued his New Year message.
President-elect
Barrow has requested for this statement to be issued in response to the salient
points raised by the Outgoing President.
The
General Public should be informed that a National leader should speak for the
people.
The
speech of a National leader should inspire certainty and hope rather than
promote uncertainty and despair.
A
New Year message from a Head of State is designed to take stock of the past and
present and inspire people with hope for a better future.
At
this juncture, the Public is fully aware that there is an Incoming and an
Outgoing President in The Gambia.
The
Incoming President has informed the Gambian people that he is declared the winner
of the 1st December 2016 polls and is mandated by Section 63 Subsection 2 of
the Constitution to assume office, when the term of office of the Outgoing
President expires this month. This is projected to occur on the 19th January
2017.
He
has, therefore, called on the Outgoing President to open up the channel of
communication so that, for the first time in Gambian history, Executive power
would be transferred from an Outgoing President to an Incoming one through
peaceful means.
President-elect
Barrow has emphasised in no uncertain terms that the only time the ECOWAS, AU
and The UN would have a foothold in managing Gambian affairs is if the two
Presidents fail to do, with impeccable thoroughness, what the Constitution of
the Republic demands of both Presidents.
Section
41 of the Constitution of the Gambia has given the Independent Electoral
Commission (IEC) the mandate to conduct elections, and Section 81 mandates it
to announce the results. This has been done and President-elect Barrow is the
winner. Section 63 Subsection 2 makes it mandatory for President Jammeh to
vacate office when his term expires, and for President-elect Barrow to assume
Office on that same day, which is scheduled for the 19th January 2017.
President-elect
Barrow, ECOWAS, AU and the UN have calculated their steps. Outgoing President
Jammeh should also calculate his steps, so that no mistakes would be made that
would undermine the peace and security of the country.
It
should be crystal clear that filing an election petition is the private matter
of a loser in an election. It does not prevent mandatory constitutional
processes from taking place. This is trite law.
All
students of electoral jurisprudence in Africa would have followed the election
petitions in Nigeria, Ghana, etc., and should be able to advise the Outgoing
President that an Election petition in court does not prevent any victor from
being sworn in to assume political office.
This
is the simple and elementary truth that Outgoing President Jammeh should take
note of.
Needless
to say, when his term expires he would have no constitutional mandate to be in
command of the Armed Forces of The Gambia or be duty bound to defend the
sovereignty of the country. He would be a private citizen like everybody else.
Any
President whose term of office expires, who takes up arms against an Incoming
President, whose term should begin according to law, would be regarded by the
International Community as a rebel leader. This is the candid reading that any
mature leader should derive from the declared position of ECOWAS and the rest
of the International Community.
On
The Election Petition
It
has been made very clear to the Gambian population that any Presidential
candidate and his party could file elections petitions under Section 49 of the Constitution,
when one has grievances.
Even
though President-elect Barrow and the Coalition were privy to the fact that
there was counting at polling stations, which enabled the parties to know the
results before they were declared by the IEC, campaign is not being done to
discredit the APRC petition.
Clarification
is only made to make the people to have faith that the results are incapable of
distortions which compelled the IEC to remedy the mistakes made in computation.
In
his address to the Nation, the Outgoing President, however, sowed the seed of
uncertainty by claiming that the “Chairman of the IEC invited all political
parties to the headquarters of IEC to inform them of its errors and its
rectification of the figures, without specifying the number of votes transposed
and added to Adama Barrow nationwide.”
It
is important to give some clarification by publishing what the IEC wrote. It
reads:
“PRESS RELEASE
ERROR
IN THE TOTAL OF FINAL ELECTION RESULTS
The
tabulation of the 2016 Presidential election results from the fifty three
constituencies was done correctly.
Furthermore,
regional election results were also tabulated correctly from Banjul to Basse
Administrative Areas. However, when the total votes per region were being
tallied, certain figures were inadvertently transposed. Instead of adding the
total number of votes polled by Mr Adama Barrow in the Basse Administrative
Areas, the IEC added the total number of ballots cast for Basse Administrative
Area to Adama Barrow’s total number of votes thus swelling the number of votes
Mr Barrow polled nationally.
This
error was repeated across for the other contesting candidates.
Having
noticed this, the error is now corrected and this is the actual result:
Barrow
Adama
227,708
votes
Jammeh,
Yayha A.J.J. Sheikh Prof. Alh. Dr. 208,487 votes
Kandeh,
Mamma
89,768 votes
This result which has not changed the status
quo was unanimously endorsed by the representatives of the contesting
candidates at Election House this morning, 5th December 2016.”
The
IEC has explained what happened. It is only the APRC candidate who has decided
to file an Election petition against the IEC.
President
Elect Adama Barrow is not made a party to the petition.
The Contradictory Remarks of the Outgoing
President
The
New Year message has altered the original remarks of the Outgoing President,
which made many people to call on him to step down now, which is not in line
with his constitutional mandate.
President-elect
Barrow has never called on him to step down. He has called on him to transfer
power to him in peace, when Outgoing President Jammeh’s term ends and his term
begins.
It
is Outgoing President Jammeh who announced the annulment of the elections and
the plan to hold new elections under a different electoral administration,
which had no constitutional basis.
Now he is saying, in his New Year message,
that “Giving this unjustifiable and unprecedented anomalies in the elections,
what we simply are asking for, is to return to the polls and allow the Gambians
to elect who they want to be their president in free and fair elections to be
organized by a fresh, patriotic and god fearing honest electoral commission
like it was under the leadership of Mr. Carayol.”
The
Outgoing President is now expressing a wish, instead of issuing a decree. Every
human being is entitled to a wish.
In
addition, the Outgoing President has indicated that instead of issuing a decree
to nullify the elections and compel the people to go back to the polls, he has
resorted to court action for redress in the following words: “Fellow Gambians,
in filing a petition to the Supreme Court, I merely acting in accordance to
oath I took to defend the Constitution of the Gambia as president and to
exercise my right to appeal as candidate during the presidential election of
2O16.”
This
matter is now clear. Outgoing President Jammeh has a right to pursue Court
action for redress. Incoming President-elect Barrow has a right to prepare for
his Inauguration without paying any regard to the petition filed by the APRC
candidate.
On
the Dangers of Post Electoral Violence
Outgoing
President Jammeh told the Nation in his New Year message: “There are appeals in some quarters for me to
step down. This tantamounts to disregard to the Constitution’s provision that
should govern the resolution of the court. Most, if not all, reasons advanced
for me to change initial position are based on fears of a military
confrontation that leads to violence and concerned for them to destroy this
country of ours.”
He
claimed that ECOWAS is threatening to use force to get him to step down, which
would lead to resistance in defence of National Sovereignty, but assured that
his administration would never provoke violent confrontation, but would always
promote peace. He said ECOWAS would remain unsuitable to mediate unless the
members recognise his right to go to the Court for redress.
The Way Forward
There
are two parts to National Sovereignty. There is the sovereignty of territory or
territorial Integrity and the sovereignty of citizens.
The
focal point now is the sovereignty of citizens, who are empowered to decide who
should have the authority to defend territorial integrity.
Section
1 Sub Section 2 of the Constitution states: “The sovereignty of The Gambia
resides in the people of The Gambia from whom all organs of government derive
their authority and in whose name and for whose welfare and prosperity the
power of government are to be exercised in accordance with this Constitution.”
The citizens have spoken. It is
President-elect Barrow who has derived the authority to govern from the consent
of the majority. The Constitution says that Outgoing President Jammeh should
hand over executive power to him when his term expires.
The
road to peace is to prepare to hand over power to President-elect Barrow, while
pursuing the court case of to see redress.
All
those who are counselling for such peaceful transfer of power to be effected
should be listened to as friends of The Gambia.
To
conclude, one must assert that wherever there is a will there is a way. Hence,
the peace of the country is in our hands. If we all have the will to safeguard
it, there will be a way to ensure that justice guides our action to build a
united, free and prosperous Gambia that would guarantee peace to all at all
times. The End
