Yankuba Darboe, the chairperson of the Brikama Area Council, has deliberated on the possibility of forming a political coalition between the main opposition United Democratic Party (UDP) and other opposition parties ahead of the December 5 presidential election.
Yanks made these remarks during an appearance on a televised programme on the QTV, where he reiterated his position that any opposition alliance must be led by the UDP.
Quizzed as to why smaller parties should accept this position. “Because they are small,” he responded.
“The issue is about size,” he continued. “They are small. This is politics. Numbers matters. It is the numbers that gain you the ticket to the State House.”
He stressed that some of these parties would struggle to rally even 500 people if they were tasked to mobilise a 1,000. As such, Yanks maintained, these “small parties cannot say they are equals with the UDP”, which could rally more than 200,000 voters.
“That [UDP] is the party that defeated NPP, the ruling party, in the West Coast Region by a huge margin [during the last local government elections]. I got 77,000 plus, [while] NPP were almost about 50,000 plus. So that is a big party. That is not a small party.”
Yanks opined that there is nothing missing in the UDP as it is a complete and fully structured party that could make it in the election and fully occupy government.
He added that they have the calibre of people who would be able to fill all ministerial positions, as opposed to the smaller parties that would have to need other parties like the UDP to form government.
Further quizzed by the QTV host, Alieu Ceesay, as to whether with such a mindset, there is any chance of forming a strong coalition against the incumbent, he expressed hope that there will be a coalition, but one which will be led by the UDP, different from the setup presently intended by some other political camps.
In clearing the air further, Yanks averred that if he is to be honest to himself and to others, he doesn’t think the UDP would ever form a coalition with Essa Faal of the APP-Sobeyaa. This is due to the fact that Essa Faal has made his position clear: that he would not accept coronation.
“And to us, coronation is what we want. We want our party leader to be coronated. We are the biggest party. So we said you have to coronate him. He said that’s not going to happen,” Yanks narrated, further expressing that the divergence is huge and it would be very difficult to merge these two positions.
