“MC Cham Jr. Rejects Independent Candidate Leading Opposition Coalition: ‘Let That Intellectual Get On the Ground and Be Part of Politics'”

By Seedy Jobe

MC Cham Jr., the national campaign manager of UNITE, has rejected proposals for an independent intellectual to lead a potential opposition coalition, arguing that any prospective flag bearer should first demonstrate a commitment to grassroots politics.

Speaking on Kerr Fatou’s Grand Bantaba program, Mr. Cham said coalition leadership should come from among politicians who have spent years organizing supporters, traveling across the country, and investing their own resources in political activities.

“Let that intellectual get on the ground and be part of politics,” he said.

Mr. Cham argued that it would be unfair for political parties to spend years building organizations and mobilizing voters only to hand the leadership of a coalition to someone with little or no experience in grassroots politics.

Anyone seeking to lead such a coalition, he said, should first participate in the political process, including traveling from community to community and experiencing firsthand the difficulties of political organizing in The Gambia.

Mr. Cham pointed to the 2016 presidential election and its aftermath as a cautionary example. He argued that selecting an independent candidate on the basis of a political agreement does not necessarily guarantee that the agreement will be honored once that person becomes president.

He cited the three-year transition pledge made during the 2016 opposition coalition, saying a president who initially agrees to serve three years could ultimately remain for the constitutionally prescribed five-year term because of the powers and tenure granted under the Constitution.

To illustrate his argument, Mr. Cham compared it to human rights activism, citing activist Madi Jobarteh. He said it would be difficult to justify sidelining an activist who had spent years publicly advocating for human rights and had faced arrest over his activism in favor of someone who had remained largely absent from that work.

He said the same principle should apply to politics.

Mr. Cham described political organizing in The Gambia as demanding work requiring considerable personal and financial sacrifice. He recalled recently spending five days traveling from village to village, sometimes sleeping outdoors and enduring difficult conditions while campaigning.

He contrasted those experiences with what he described as intellectuals who remain removed from grassroots political organizing but are later proposed to lead coalitions built by political parties.

“You sit in your house, drink coffee, and don’t even know the heat of the sun,” Mr. Cham said, describing what he viewed as the disconnect between some intellectuals and politicians working on the ground.

Politicians, he added, often finance their own activities, travel under difficult circumstances and sometimes struggle to find accommodation. They can also face insults, intimidation and physical attacks while organizing, he said.

Mr. Cham recalled an incident in Brikamaba during former President Yahya Jammeh’s rule, when, he said, a governor instructed guest houses not to accommodate members of the Gambia Democratic Congress, forcing party members to sleep outside.

For Mr. Cham, those experiences underscore why the selection of an opposition coalition’s flag bearer should be determined by the political leaders and organizations involved in building the coalition rather than imposed from outside.

He maintained that intellectual credentials alone should not be enough to qualify someone to lead an opposition alliance without first participating in the political work and sacrifices required to build it.