By: Sulayman Waan
Mambanyick Njie, Public Relation Officer for Gambia Democratic Congress (GDC), has called on President Adama Barrow to respect the coalition agreement of three years.
Barrow, is backed by Seven political including independent candidate that defeated former President Yahya Jammeh, but the stakeholders agreed that President should serve for three years.
However, Njie, also the secretary of propaganda and information for GDC told The Voice that “If President Barrow wants to be respected both within and beyond the country he has to be able mean what he said because the constitution stated that if someone is elected into office he\she cannot serve beyond five years but the constitutions did not indicates that the President cannot serve for less than five years,”
The former permanent secretary ministry of youth and sports cited that the Section 65 of the 1997 states that when the President resigns, incapacitated or is dead the Vice President shall take over, adding this justify that the head of state cannot serve beyond five years but can serve less than that depending on the circumstances.
Mr. Njie, 44, further said a transitional government does not necessarily have to follow the provision of the constitution in term of a mandate of a President in office, adding that President Barrow should organized a presidential election before the end of 2019 so as to respect his words and promise to the coalition and Gambians.
“Therefore, since Barrow signed an agreement with his colleagues that this is going to be a transitional government of three years when they win then he [Barrow] should start thinking of organizing election before the end of the year,” he noted.
According to him, in this case the President should presides the election transparently and fairly and then hand over the Presidency to the victory, noting that in this case there will be no possibility of the VP taking over power.
He added that when the President is force to resign obviously the VP will take over the Presidency seat; saying when the VP takes over the leadership, there is no guarantee that he will organize election. “Therefore is only Barrow who can enforce the coalition agreement,” he noted.
“The fundamental reason why these people came together and formed a coalition was because the situation in the country at that time was abnormal. This was the reason they agreed for three year transitional period as transitional government are institutionalize in countries were the political environment is abnormal,” The GDC PRO said..
He continued: “They [coalition] knew at time they have no choice but to unite because without that they could have not defeat Yahya Jammeh. They knew that the constitution required that a President should serve for five years as the upper limit but they also knew that as a transitional government the term could be reduced to three years and that why they agreed to three years.”
