Dr. Mai Ahmad Fatty of the Gambian Moral Congress
Posted
on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By
William Yaw Owusu
Monday,
May 25, 2015
The Gambian
opposition is rallying international support to force President Yahya Jammeh
not to stand for elections for a fifth term in office.
One of the leaders,
Dr. Mai Ahmad Fatty who stood as Presidential Candidate of Gambia Moral
Congress (GMC) in 2011 appealed passionately to world leaders especially those in
the West African sub-region to persuade President Jammeh to abandon his fifth
term ambition.
Addressing the media
in Accra yesterday Dr Fatty who is the Chairman of ECOWAS Technical Committee
on Internal Democracy, criticized President Jammeh for being a ‘dictator’ and
said he appears to have established himself as life president.
He said without
pressure to ensure electoral reforms, the President and his gang will rule the
Gambia forever saying “the Gambia is the only country in the world that is
using stones instead of ballot papers for elections in the 21st
Century.”
The opposition leader
further said that President Jammeh’s continuous abuse of human rights,
constitutional violations, stifling of the opposition and muzzling the media
has brought the Gambia on its knees.
“We want the ECOWAS
community and the whole of Africa to know about what is going on in the Gambia.
There is widespread abuse of human rights, torture corruption and nepotism and
there is widespread economic hardship which has forced a lot of the youth to
embark on perilous journeys on the Mediterranean.”
“If you close the
door to official opposition, you open the same door to unofficial opposition
and things could explode if the situation persists,” the leader of the GMC
said.
He said since the
December 30, 2014 abortive coup, there had been mass arrests and many people
had been in detention without trial for many months.
Dr. Fatty said that
key reforms such as limiting the president’s term of office to two as well as
ensuring that elections are held for a second time if there is not declared
winner in the first were the best options to get the Gambia out of the current
dictatorship.
“The good people of
the Gambia are living in a state of fear. President Jammeh and his men have put
terror in the people and they are doing things with impunity,” he said.
He said “rule of law
is dead in the Gambia. Judges are dismissed at will and people are detained
without trial while others are tortured and killed for fighting for freedom. He
does not respect international protocols and conventions that ensure a just
society.”
Dr. Fatty said his
party will not get involved in the next election if President Jammeh contests
for a fifth term since it would be a mere formality.
He appealed to ECOWAS
leaders to “bring their experience to bear on the Gambia by pressing Mr. Jammeh
to enforce ECOWAS Protocols.”
“We are not asking
for subversion but we believe it is their legal right to ask our President to
enforce the protocols which he continues to ignore.
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