By: Kemo Kanyi
The secretary-general and leader of the UDP Lawyer Ousainou Darboe has maintained that the 2024 draft constitution is not a true reflection of the wishes and aspirations of the Gambia people, describing the document as bad.
To the long-standing politician, the most ideal thing to do was to re-introduce the “Cherno Jallow Draft”.
In a recent interview with Kerr Fatou TV network, Hon. Darboe pointed out that the 2020 draft will only concentrate power in the hands of the President, adding that civilized nations have done away with the culture of creating an “all-powerful” president. The UDP leader pointed out that the concentration of power in the executive is at odds with good governance practices.
“Why do you want to have an all-powerful president? The powers of the President should be guided and curbed by a Constitution. The efforts, energy and resources that they have invested, advocating for the ‘’Barrow Draft Constitution’’ could have invested for the “Cherno Jallow Draft. We would have been ushered into the Third Republic if they had done exactly that. I believe that the advocates should have called on the government to bring the Constitutional Review Commission’s draft of 2020 to the National Assembly, negotiate around it and push it to the committee stage for consideration and possible amendments,’’ Darboe opined.
He added that his party’s legislators will vote against the 2024 draft and if successfully passed, UDP will launch a campaign for it to be subjected to a referendum. UDP leader contendedthat the 2020 draft contains all the good things while the 2020 draft has all things bad, adding that UDP will not accept such a constitution because the party wouldn’t want to betray Gambians.
“We can defend our position against the 2024 Draft, but they [NPP] cannot defend their position on rejecting the 2020 Draft. I am content with the 2020 Draft and I am sure other political party leaders, who have the interest of the country at heart, are also contented with it because they wouldn’t want to have an all-powerful president who can do whatever he wants. They [other political party leaders] do not wish to be that kind of president,’’ the veteran politician maintained.