President Adama Barrow’s advisor, Dou Sano, has said the ruling National People’s Party will rectify mistakes in Saturday’s parliamentary election by sweeping all the mayoral seats in upcoming local government election next year.

“I can tell you this that the upcoming mayoral election, UDP will not see anything and they have touched my nerve. The mistake [of not getting more] people come out to vote [for us] will be rectified. This is a lesson for us,” he said.

However, he added: “We have seen places like Banjul where the president had won the presidential election but failed to win the parliamentary election. I would say those people given the political responsibility in Banjul failed to do their job effectively, because look at the results of votes for President Barrow was not touched. They didn’t vote. 

“Our people who we entrusted to go and campaign there didn’t do their job as we expected it to be done and many people didn’t see themselves also in the politics. 

“I believed that they didn’t do their groundwork properly and, on that basis, UDP capitalised to win by bringing their people to vote.”

Mr Sano continued: “What I can say is that our people on the ground given the role to do politics failed to do their job in Banjul, but I know Banjul people like and love Barrow. 

“And the other reason is the issue of selection of candidates also contributed to the loss in Banjul.

“With or without Barrow, our MPs in KM [Kanifing Municipality] should campaign for themselves to win the election because Barrow’s weight is on their side, but they also had power before the election. 

“They should not have seen their defeat like people like Abdoulie Ceesay has done a tremendous groundwork which allowed his re-election.”

“The campaign team failed and if people heard this, they would think the people of Kombo dislike him and the selection process contributed to the problem because the Kombonkas were not happy about the selection process,” he added.

Reporting by Adama Makasuba