Essa Faal, leader of the Turnaround movement, has accused the Barrow administration of playing a political game around the draft constitution to tightening his grip on power for 20 years.

Reacting to the government’s plan to reintroduce the draft constitution that was rejected by parliament in 2021, Faal insisted the lawmakers of the ruling party voted against the draft constitution over a two-term limit provision that he said was not in favour of Barrow.

“With regards to this new constitution, it’s quite interesting how the whole issue unfolded. I predicted that they are playing a game around the constitution. It’s a game that started a long time ago. When the Constitutional Review Commission (CRC) presented their work, they understood that the new constitution doesn’t favour them because the president’s powers were trimmed down, there was a term limit that started last term.

“Those two provisions were why they played a political game to kill the draft constitution. So, after holding back the draft constitution from passing and reproducing it now gives them what they wanted in the constitution. And that’s 20 years in power,” he said.

“When I was saying this many people were saying I was just exaggerating. Let me tell you this, if Adama Barrow has the courage to take the issue of the constitution then he only wants 20 years in power. Because by the time we go to the 2026 polls, he had already been in power for 10 years, and if we have a constitution of that and it says you should be in power for only two-term.

“When will it start? January and it will go up to 2036. That’s why they killed the draft constitution when it was first taken to the parliament. It was a game to mislead the public about the constitution,” he added.

Reporting by Adama Makasuba