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Raleigh was a success, as it was historic, even though there were glaring flaws which the organizers weren't keen on entertaining any suggestion that would deviate from their vision of things. Thus, no new idea was neither encouraged or entertained. Mindful of the sensibilities of the organizers to criticism, suggestions and advise were voluntarily suppressed which resulted in missed opportunities in strengthening the process. Criticism should be invited and encouraged by the constituent parts of The Struggle, as a way of improving their respective strategies as well as on their individual capacities to assess progress, at any given point, on deliverables.
We have gone past the stage of re-litigating the debate about how Dakar became Raleigh because we see no utility in it, and we certainly do not want to provide fodder to a minute few who enjoy pulling the scab over old wounds. We'd rather apply medication and plaster.
We will also not dwell on whether political parties were originally intended to be an integral part of what we refer to as the Raleigh Process. We had preferred to separate the politicians from the civic/political activists for reasons we had advanced in these pages previously.
That said, it is still possible to let the political parties do what they do best i.e. campaign for votes, and the civic organizations do what they do best i.e. advocate, agitate, educate (civilly) and raise funds for organizations/political parties they support at home. Again, we had made some suggestions in previous blogs on how this realignment can be achieved.
We hope CORDEG and GCC will take some of these suggestions on board. Leaders of the opposition political parties have been so much entangled in the intramural sport of online radio 'interviews' that they usually end up in acrimonious political point scoring than enlightening the public. Decoupling the parties from the civic/activist groups, these "interviews" will become purely political events if party leaders elect to go on the shows.
The latest addition to the mix is NRMG or the National Resistance Movement of The Gambia which promotes itself as both a political movement as well as a military outfit. Reconciling these two distinct missions is a subject of internal debate within the existing frameworks.
We hope a clear understanding is reached soon because the presence of this group has cause great angst within the constituent groups which is one more reason why political parties must be shielded at all cost. Rethinking The Struggle's strategy is necessary at this point.
