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Momodou
Denmark
11804 Posts |
 Posted - 08 Feb 2007 : 00:55:32
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OPINION
A Post-mortem of the National Assembly Elections (Part II)
By Demba Jawo
The National Assembly elections are now history, the victors are celebrating while the vanquished and their supporters are leaking their wounds.
Leaking their wounds indeed, as there have been reports from various parts of the country that several opposition candidates and their supporters are being subjected to arbitrary arrests and detentions by the police, most of the time for very flimsy reasons, and in certain instances subjected to intimidation and harassment by APRC supporters. This is yet another indication of the type of democracy operating in this country, where it seems to be an offence to even sympathise with the opposition, let alone manifest one’s opposition to the regime.
The APRC has won with a “landslide” while the opposition has been humiliated, no doubt due to several factors, including the unprecedented low voter turn-out.
Therefore, what is now left is for the political leadership to sit down and reflect on the situation. While the APRC may be basking in glory for their “landslide” victory, but they also need to reflect on the cause of the ever-increasing voter apathy. It is certainly a symptom of something, which should be of concern to all Gambians, no matter on which side of the political spectrum one may be.
However, the biggest reflection should come from the opposition, which has been humiliated twice within three months. It is therefore time that they sat down to evaluate themselves if they still want to remain relevant in the Gambian political terrain.
Indeed, there appears to be a general consensus that the problems of the opposition are mainly self-imposed, even though the political playing field in this country is far from ideal. The very fact that President Jammeh has assumed the power to hire and fire members of the Independent Electoral Commission and the police can still arrest opposition candidates duly nominated to contest elections, sometimes for very flimsy reasons, is an indication that the opposition have a formidable task to make an impact in the country. It is indeed hard for anyone to imagine that it is only the opposition candidates and their supporters who cause problems and the APRC candidates and their supporters, despite all the power and influence behind them, are angels who are always law abiding. The reality on the ground is of course a different matter altogether and a good manifestation of the type of democracy operating in this country.
While the problems of the opposition started since the assumption of power by this regime, especially when President Jammeh seems to regard everyone who opposes his policies as “unpatriotic” and an enemy of the state, but the opposition’s down-ward slide actually began in 2006 when the National Alliance for Democracy and Development (NADD) collapsed, as a result of the decision by Ousainou Darboe and Hamat Bah to pull out their parties from the alliance, thus effectively dashing any hopes of a united opposition to fight the APRC hegemony.
It is indeed still hard to comprehend the justification given by these two former political heavyweights to unceremoniously quit the alliance. While it is possible that they had genuine grievances for taking the move that they took, but there is a general consensus that it was quite an unwise move to split the alliance at that crucial period when the presidential elections were just around the corner.
While at the time the two politicians were beaming with confidence that as the leaders of the two biggest blocs, they have dealt a death blow to the alliance, but they seem to have failed to realise that through their action, they had also destroyed any chances the opposition ever had against the APRC. There is no doubt that before the split, the alliance had a good chance of dislodging the APRC either in the presidential elections or at the National Assembly elections. This was even manifested by the low turn-out in both polls, a majority of whom no doubt were opposition supporters who became disillusioned with the split and decided not to come out to vote. It is therefore very likely that if NADD had not split, a great majority of those people would have voted for the opposition and in that case, the outcome of the election would have been very different.
However, to show their over-confidence, the UDP and the NRP were making claims that as the two biggest blocs of the NADD alliance, they were capable of going it on their own; referring in particular to their combined votes in the last presidential elections in 2001. Hamat Bah was even quoted as saying that all that they needed was an additional five per cent on top of whatever they had in the 2001, as if that figure was already securely tugged somewhere for them to collect.
Therefore, even after they were humiliated during the presidential elections, they did not seem to have learnt any lessons and they instead again rebuffed any calls for a tactical alliance in the National Assembly elections. Instead, they even went on to duplicate efforts by putting up candidates where NADD had already got candidates. In the end, the results were not only worse, but in the case of the NRP, it seems to have been completely annihilated. It is quite hard to see how it can resuscitate itself after its failure to capture even a single seat, after spending no less than D40, 000 in the payment of deposits alone.
Indeed, there are already calls for the present opposition leadership to call it quits and give way to a new breed of leadership. It is quite obvious that the leadership has lost all credibility in the eyes of the Gambian public and no matter what other strategy they may employ, it is hard to see how they can regain the people’s confidence. Therefore, the only answer is for them to step down and hand over the mantle to a more determined crop of leadership.
See (Part I)
Source: Foroyaa Newspaper Burning Issue
Issue No. 015/2007, 7-8 February, 2007
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A clear conscience fears no accusation - proverb from Sierra Leone |
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