By Edrissa Jallow and Yusef Taylor
The leader of the Gambia Democratic Congress (GDC), Hon Mama Kandeh has gone into an agreement with a fringe group from the APRC called “No to Alliance Movement” which is against the Alliance between President Adama Barrow’s National Peoples Party (NPP) and Fabakary Tombong Jatta’s lead Association for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC).
In a shocking turn of events, former President Jammeh reneged against the NPP-APRC Alliance and attempted to replace the APRC Executive while in exile at Equatorial Guinea. This resulted in the “No to Alliance Movement” backing the GDC.
It can be recalled that Hon Kandeh was an Executive Member of the APRC during former President Jammeh’s regime. However, towards the end of Jammeh’s last term in Office Hon Kandeh was expelled from the Party after which he formed the GDC which contested the 2016 Presidential Elections. At the 2016 Elections, the GDC came third behind current President Adama Barrow and former President Jammeh.
Soon after submitting his Nomination Form to the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), Hon Kandeh was asked if his agreement with the “No to Alliance Movement” will jeopardize the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission and justice for the victims of former President Jammeh.
In response, Hon Kandeh believes “that as Gambians if I have to represent, I have to represent everyone”. The journalist interjected and reframed his question to ascertain how Hon Kandeh saw the Alliance from a moral perspective “siding with a party that is seen as a perpetrator”. Hon Kandeh rebutted by saying “I believe these are Gambians who you cannot send away from this country and you are not better citizens than them.”
Hon Kandeh elaborated to say “that those that have come up with the name TRRC, I believe they have very brilliant ideas and I am in support of the TRRC because the meaning of TRRC is to reunite Gambians to bring Gambians together after the truth has been revealed. So, we have to reconcile”.
The TRRC is a commission enacted by the National Assembly in 2017 to investigate the human rights violations of the former regime. The report for the TRRC Recommendations is expected to indict former President Jammeh and his regime for human rights excesses orchestrated under his watch.
Another journalist questioned Hon Kandeh if there was an agreement to provide Amnesty to former President Jammeh. In his response, Hon Kandeh asked the journalist “I don’t know where were you when that Memorandum of Understanding was read but nothing of that was mentioned”. The journalist persisted to clarify by asking “so you don’t have any agreement?” To which Hon Kandeh responded to say “this is what am telling you, nothing of that in my MoU [with the No to Alliance Movement] was mentioned”.
