Secretary general and leader of People’s Democratic Independent Organisation and Socialism has said critics of with conjecture minds will be disappointed with facts as he faced reporters.
Speaking at a news conference at the party’s bureau in Churchil’sl Town on Tuesday, Honorable Halifa Sallah told reporters that: “those who claim that PDOIS is a centralise organ where its particular individual decides everything will now be disappointed by the facts on the ground.
Meanwhile, he said “What I know is that I was a presidential candidate in 2016 and when I invited the presidential candidates, five of them to Kairaba [Beach Hotel] so that we can build a coalition and allow one of us to be the candidate, I know that eventually people came. Now, after that, it came to a situation where we prepared the ground to select a candidate and I believe that we did succeed in selecting a candidate. And I believe that we did campaign and I am sure those who followed our campaign would hear my voice and I believe that the type of campaign we thought was acceptable to the Gambian people was actually the type of campaign which occurred. And I remember the president (Adama Barrow) then saying. And I don’t want anybody to think that we’re caricaturing him in any way. But that, ‘I have people around me and I’m not afraid of anything’.
“And obviously we were among those and what we said appeared to have been very much agreeable to the Gambian population and very much understood by them. And I believe that that method of campaign has never happened in this country by any party other than PDOIS. A very peaceful campaign. Message-drive campaign. Insult-free campaign. Anger-free campaign, Until the end that we could mobilise the whole Gambian population. One Gambia, one nation, one people. And the whole country became inspired. That’s how we won 2016. How can we separate PDOIS from that and say that your message is not being heard? Who made it possible to change the country in 2016? We achieved and you deprive us of our achievement? You don’t want to see our achievement,” he said
He continued: “You don’t want to hear our achievement. That is the problem of the country. It’s not that PDOIS has not had impact but people refused to recognize the impact and give the impression that PDOIS has not been having impact. But when they need something, they come to us so that they achieve it. Yet they say nobody listens to us.”