DP says will use withheld election punch |16 November 2005

“People expected us to hammer the SPPF during past election campaigns but we stopped short of doing that for the sake of national reconciliation, leaving the Seychelles National Party (SNP) to do that. In the process they won themselves 43 percent of the votes in the December 2002 parliamentary elections,” he said.

He noted that the Seychelles People’s Progressive Front (SPPF) won 54 percent and DP only 3 percent, “a far cry from the 36 percent we polled in 1993,” he said.

He was commenting after relaunching his party’s youth movement, the “Young Democrats,” which he said will be a useful tool to break a possible tie between the other parties, SPPF and SNP.

DP did not field a candidate in December 2002 presidential elections which returned President Albert Rene into office with a 54 percent majority vote against Ramkalawan’s 45 percent, saying it was preparing for the 2006 elections instead.

“We dropped from 36 percent to only 3 percent because the electorate refused to listen to our policy of national reconciliation. The peace message we were trying to deliver to the nation was not well received.

“With all the hardships they were experiencing they expected the DP to provide a hard punch against the SPPF which we did not deliver and that allowed the SNP, then called the United Opposition (UO), to fill in the vacuum.

“The UO gave a reply to what the SPPF were saying but we were trying to be more conciliatory but obviously that’s not the message people wanted to hear,” he told Nation.

He said that DP is now more of a thorn in the flesh than SNP.

“We are already delivering that punch. If you read our newspaper, Seychelles Weekly, I can tell you you’ll find we are not that reconciliatory. We are hitting harder than the Regar of SNP and people are saying we are more of hard liners,” said Mr Gabriel, a former head of the Commonwealth office to the United Nations.

About 200 youths registered into the new movement which the founder of the original chapter, Dave Barallon, said will seek to keep the young people busy.

“We intend to try and use the facilities within the districts to play such games as domino to keep the youths busy,” said Barallon who over 10 years ago initiated the movement which had fallen into dormancy.

“Young people have an important role to play in the next election and we strongly feel that relaunching the Young Democrats will place DP in the right place for any bargaining process with the other parties should there be no overall majority in the next elections,” he said.

During the meeting, former DP leader, President James Mancham, addressed the youths, hitting out at the abuse of alcohol by youths in Seychelles, saying they need to be disciplined.