Halifa Sallah

Halifa Sallah 2016

Halifa Babacarr Sallah (* 1953 in Serekunda ) is a Gambian politician .

Life

Serekunda East constituency
General election	be right	Voting share
1987	000000000001023.00000000001,023	9.79%
1992	000000000000325.0000000000325	4.33%
1997	000000000008529.00000000008,529	32.59%

Serekunda Central constituency
General election	be right	Voting share
2002	not used	elected

Serekunda East constituency
General election	be right	Voting share
2007	000000000004302.00000000004,302	35.16%

Serekunda constituency
General election	be right	Voting share
2017	000000000003756.00000000003,756	76.05%

He was an opposition leader in the National Assembly and a member of the Pan-African Parliament . Until he lost to Sainey Jaiteh ( Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction party ) in the parliamentary elections on January 25, 2007 , he represented the constituency of Serekunda Central.

Sallah was chairman of the People's Democratic Organization for Independence and Socialism (PDOIS) and a key figure in the National Alliance for Democracy and Development (NADD) coalition . He also wrote for Foroyaa , an independent opposition newspaper.

In June 2005 he was expelled from the National Assembly along with the other three opposition MPs. NADD had registered as a political party and the Supreme Court ruled that it was against the Gambian Constitution to belong to two parties at the same time. Critics interpreted this measure as an attempt to silence the parliamentary opposition, because political alliances are not regulated in the constitution. A by-election took place on September 29, in which Sallah was re-elected by a large margin of votes.

On November 15, 2005, he and two other members of the opposition were arrested for illicit cooperation with the President of Senegal .

Sallah was a candidate in the 2006 presidential election in Gambia , taking third place with 5.98%.

In the January 2007 election he lost his seat in parliament. The fact that President Yahya Jammeh expressed satisfaction in a post-election speech about the defeat of "the two empty seats in the National Assembly" obviously referred to Sallah and Hamat Bah . Sallah was blamed for the poor outcome on the opposition and his party split as a result. Sallah then withdrew from politics.

On March 8, 2009, he was arrested again and taken to the Mile 2 central prison , where the government suspected him of espionage. The allegations were dropped on March 25 "in the interests of peace and justice".

In June 2009, Sallah was reportedly arrested again while visiting a group of detained journalists at the National Intelligence Agency . He was held overnight and released the next day on bail.

In the 2017 parliamentary elections , he ran again as a candidate for PDOIS in the Serekunda constituency in the Kanifing Administrative Region . With 76.05% he was able to win the constituency before Seedy Bojang (APRC) for himself.