By: Muhammed Lamin Drammeh
The Secretary-General and party leader of the opposition United Democratic Party (UDP), Lawyer Ousainou Darboe, has challenged President Adama Barrow and his National People’s Party (NPP) to a debate on ideas and programmes instead of competing to show who pulls out more crowds, declaring that UDP is not into a crowd competition as that is insignificant to the Gambian people.
The UDP party leader challenged the ruling party for a debate on ideas and what they can offer Gambians. He said his party will demonstrate to Gambians why they have been backing the wrong horse.
“I challenge them. Let them come. Let us debate ideas. Let us meet ‘fasa fass’ whatever they say, we [will] show them it is not true. So that Gambians have now realized that really, they were backing the wrong horse,” he said.
Darboe was speaking to the press at the UDP’s Manjai Bureau after the nomination of the party’s candidates in the mayoral and chairperson elections today.
Yesterday, after the nomination of its candidate for mayoral and chairmanship elections, the NPP organized a grand rally at Buffer Zone with a large crowd.
Today, it was UDP’s turn for nominations, and they had a bustling crowd as well. However, Darboe said that his party is not in a crowd competition with the NPP. Instead, they want to compete in ideas.
“If it is about the crowd, we are not in a crowd competition. We want to compete in ideas. We want to compete in programmes. We want to compete in the ability to satisfy the Gambian people and not the crowd. The crowd is insignificant. What is significant for the Gambian people is what we can offer them,” he told reporters.
Darboe sounded confident that his party candidates will win in the various local government area councils in the country. While expressing hope for the election, he implored his party supporters to be law-abiding during the course of the elections.
Both the ruling National People’s Party (NPP) and United Democratic Party (UDP) pulled out a bustling crowd in their various area councils in the Kombos.
