Although I do not wish to put the proponents of elections in the Gambia on the spot, I think it is only fair that we expect a reaction from them regarding the indefinite postponement of the Local Government elections and the announcement of the ground rules governing the Sami Chieftaincy elections. I have been anxiously waiting for the past few days for postings attacking the IEC for this latest fraud. That Johnson character at the IEC was upset a few days ago because people were speculating that the Local Government elections will be postponed. Now the same man was forced to announce what most Gambians saw coming long time ago. It is amazing that the announcement was made at the prompting of a journalist's question. So if the journalist had not raised the question, the IEC would still be leaving the gullible Gambians in the dark. Even after this impostor had the audacity to announce that the elections were postponed, people did not challenge him to swallow his words when he said the other day that plenty can happen in two months; implying that it was irresponsible for people to speculate that the elections will not take place. This man knew all along that the elections will not take place so long as the APRC was not guaranteed an easy victory. He nevertheless took that arrogant air of his to numerous forums and continue to pretend that everything was fine and there will be elections. If anyone thinks that this man is impartial and capable, after his despicable behavior, that person must be living in another planet. The flip-flop committed in this case is inexcusable. We read into his crafty shenanigans from day one when he announced the elections dates and made it conditional on our lame-duck parliament passing some piece of legislation. In my opinion, this man is either very stupid or very corrupt. In any case, he has no business participating in elections in the capacity he currently holds. The opposition should agitate for his removal. He would wait for legislation to set the dates for the Local Government elections, but he would not wait for legislation to come up with those ridiculous rules governing the Sami Chieftaincy elections. As I understand it, both the statute books and court rulings are silent as to whether the Sami elections should be conducted on a partisan basis. So how on earth did this man come up with a rule saying that political parties should not field candidates for that elections? And that political parties cannot campaign for the candidates participating in that elections? What is more puzzling is that the opposition parties back home seemed to be content with this state of affairs. Proponents of elections on G_L also seem to be happy with this latest debacle. Apart from reports that UDP is calling for a tax boycott, I have not heard any denunciation of these draconian arrangements. This is outrageous. Is this the same type of silence we are going to experience come next year and there is no presidential elections. The government unilaterally postponed a crucial election and what do we have from the opposition? Total muteness. APRC might as well just go ahead and appoint a chief for Sami. The sham that is going to take place on November 16 is a total waste of resources. July 22nd Movement thugs have already stacked the deck against none APRC supporters. So de facto, APRC is conducting a campaign. What these stupid rules from the IEC are just legal niceties to exclude opponents of the July 22nd Movement. At the very least, this Johnson fellow from the IEC has to be forced to explain where he came up with these rules that are going to govern the Sami elections. The opposition leaders have to take over the agenda and mobilize their bases to challenge every move of this illegal regime we have back home. They should not just talk about a tax revolt. They should put structures in place to implement that strategy. Lead the revolts yourself and be prepared to go to jail for your refusal to pay taxes. If ordinary Gambians know that the opposition has a genuine plan to rally around, they will come out and support the opposition. It is incomprehensible that some of these things are going on in the country right before the eyes of people that are capable of doing something about it. We should be consistent in our attack of the dictatorship. We must not send them wrong signals by applauding some of their cosmetic changes. That is the only way we can lead people to rise up against Yaya. I have to say that the proponents of democracy and peaceful change in the Gambia are not helping their cause by not speaking up against injustices such as those that visited us this week. KB _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask] if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------