The Edward Francis Small Centre for Rights and Justice registers with grave concern the remarks by Pres. Adama Barrow that he can be “president until he is ready and then hand over the presidency to his children, who in turn when they are ready would hand over to his grandchildren.”
We discover this assertion to be completely inappropriate that undermines the democratic and constitutional setup of the Gambia as a multiparty democratic republic. The 1997 Constitution offers below Section 39 that it’s residents who elect a president. Further, Section 63 establishes the time period of the president to be 5 years who’s elected by registered Gambian voters.
There is not any provision in our Constitution that permits or empowers a president at hand over the presidency to his little one or grandchild. Hence no quantity of politicking or pleasure warrants or justifies for a president to talk in these phrases. Rather, the President have to be seen and heard fulfilling his oath of workplace and protection of the Constitution as stipulated in Section 61(2).
In this regard, EF Small Centre hereby calls on the President Adama Barrow to right away withdraw his unconstitutional and undemocratic remarks he made in a rally in Basse. While nothing stops a toddler or grandchild of the President from contesting elections, there is no such thing as a regulation or energy that the President has at hand over the Office of the President to anybody, extra so to his relations. The Gambia is neither a monarchy nor a one-party dictatorship.
We due to this fact alert the Independent Electoral Commission to train their authority as per the Elections Act to carry the President accountable that his political speeches should not violate the Constitution and the norms of multiparty democracy.
Similarly, we name on all political events together with the NPP in addition to the National Assembly, CSOs and certainly all residents to demand the President withdraw his ill-informed and anti-democratic remarks. We want to name on Pres. Barrow to henceforth chorus from making remarks that counter the tenets and requirements of the Constitution and Democracy.
EF Small Centre hereby expresses its resolve to face guard for the Constitution and the Republic by exposing and holding accountable anybody who needs to undermine or threaten constitutionalism and democracy within the Gambia.
In The Spirit of Edward Francis Small, For The Gambia Our Homeland.
Madi Jobarteh
