By Fatou Sillah
A deputy leader of the Unite Movement for Change has dismissed the National People’s Party’s newly unveiled manifesto as little more than theater, accusing the ruling party of failing to substantively engage with its own policy document at a recent rally.
Yahya Menteng Sanyang, the movement’s deputy leader for finance and administration and the National Assembly member for Latrikunda Sabiji, said the rollout amounted to a hollow display rather than a genuine policy presentation.
“For me, it’s just a kind of political performance. It’s a scam,” Mr. Sanyang said.
He argued that speakers at the N.P.P.’s mega rally spent far more time attacking the opposition than discussing the substance of the manifesto itself.
“You want Gambians to feel that the manifesto is a real document, from the president to the last speaker,” he said. “But nobody talked about the content of the manifesto.”
According to Mr. Sanyang, not a single speaker at the event quoted directly from the document.
“During that rally, no speaker quoted a single line, a single sentence, a single paragraph from that manifesto,” he said. “All you talked about was the U.D.P., the opposition — this and that.”
He suggested the omission undermined the credibility of the launch. “You launch your manifesto today, and the next day nobody talks about its content, yet you want Gambians to take you as a serious political organization,” he said.
Mr. Sanyang also questioned the rationale behind a sitting government issuing a manifesto at all, noting that the N.P.P. already governs with an established policy framework.
“A sitting government launching a manifesto — for me, you already have a whole development agenda, a budget to implement, a national development plan,” he said. “This is the first time I’m hearing of a government launching a manifesto.”
By contrast, Mr. Sanyang said his own party’s forthcoming manifesto would be shaped directly by grassroots consultations.
“We conducted interviews with taxi drivers, women in gardens, carpenters, fishermen, and mechanics,” he said. “Our manifesto is structured in such a way that when we unveil it, Gambians will appreciate it.”
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