By Fatou Sillah
Demba Ali Jawo, former Minister of Information and a member of the Apex Initiative, has urged opposition parties to engage in inclusive and balanced negotiations if they are to form a viable political coalition. He stressed that all parties must participate as equals and avoid unilateral decision-making.
According to Jawo, successful coalition-building requires collective dialogue and consensus rather than directives imposed by a single party.
“In a coalition, what is important is to sit around the table, discuss, and agree on the steps to be taken,” he said. “It should not be a situation where one party decides what will happen and everyone else simply follows. That approach will not help in forming a coalition.”
“In a coalition, what is important is to sit down around the table and discuss and agree on what steps you are going to take before you,” he said. “I mean, it is not a question of one party saying that this is what is going to happen and then everybody follows, so that is not going to help in forming a coalition.”
Jawo noted that personality differences and divergent expectations among political parties often present major challenges to coalition efforts. He cited the 2016 coalition that brought an end to the rule of former President Yahya Jammeh, arguing that internal weaknesses in the negotiation process ultimately led to its collapse.
“We have seen what happened in 2016; there was this coalition that removed Yahya Jammeh. What happened was that the coalition ended up tearing itself apart because the way the negotiations were done was not cohesive enough, so in that case it didn’t work,” he said.
He emphasized that meaningful dialogue conducted on an equal footing remains essential and achievable, given the level of commitment he believes exists among opposition parties. “It is just a question of discussing what needs to be agreed on as equals, but all needs to be discussed on the table, and I think it is possible because there is a lot of commitment among the different parties to actually form a coalition,” he said.
Talking about party-led flagbearer claims, Jawo clarified that Apex’s role is to provide an address to concerns about party-led claims over flagbearer selection. Jawo clarified that the Apex Initiative does not seek to impose decisions. Instead, he said, its role is to facilitate dialogue among political stakeholders.
“As far as Apex is concerned, it is just to create the platform where the different actors will come and discuss what needs to be done,” he said.
Comments are closed.