Mr. Dampha,
You said it best when you wrote:
"The crux of the matter is: who is eligible to vote at what constituency?
The most fundamental thing about elections. PDOIS and NRP are ready to
venture the soccer field with eleven players and NO ASSURANCE from the
referee (IEC) and the opponent (APRC) as to how many players the opponent
will field. For all we know APRC can field aliens from planet Mars. I hope
the UDP Alliance does not take part in this ridiculous charade."
… I think it is fair to say that this is the most cogent and eloquent defense of the Alliance position vis-à-vis the boycott of the National Assembly elections. As you clearly demonstrated, taking part in these farcical exercises in "multi-party democracy" would equate with nothing more than a ridiculous charade – to borrow an appropriate phrase from you. That people continue to miss the salient but simple points you’ve raised in your piece just goes to demonstrate the extent to which honesty has become a rarer commodity in Gambian public life; and how self-regard, moral corruption and intellectual dishonesty continue to take root in Gambian public life.
Mr. Dampha, the Alliance’s decision to boycott these bogus elections are premised on fundamental regard for due process. The Alliance is right to insist that last minute ‘ferrying’ of voters from one constituency to another, and in most instances, making advances on these illegal transfers without regard whatsoever to the stipulations of the Election Decree (Election Decree? I thought the Gambia is supposedly a democratic country; or a more democratic country more than five years?) are a mockery of free and fair elections. The ‘ferrying’ of these voters illegally are designed to illegally influence the outcome of the elections, especially in certain constituencies where the APRC has a hopeless chance of electoral victory. This is not an argument stating that voters cannot transfer from one constituency to another – in fact they can; they just have to follow due process. On the contrary, the point is that Roberts’ bogus claims that only under 2000 voters requested for a transfer appears to be something of a tongue-in-cheek assertion: under his very nose, APRC supporters are being moved illegally from constituency to constituency to beef up their wafer thin support in those constituencies where they don’t stand a good chance of winning a free and fair election. It is only Roberts, with his head deliberately buried in the sand, who is missing out on the fact that voters are strategically but illegally being ‘ferried’ from one constituency to another, and the numbers involved could be as high as the Alliance is claiming – contrary to Roberts’ recent attempts at debunking those claims.
Needless to say that Roberts’s is operating with a pistol on his head; and, should he dare raise inappropriate questions about what Baba Jobe and the NIA thugs are perpetrating right under his very nose, he knows the full score. Roberts’ is powerless and scared to do anything about Jammeh’s criminal activities, period. He doesn’t have the moral courage and tact to stand up to these people. Nor does the IEC have any semblance of an independent arbiter of free and fair elections in the Gambia. This time around, the Alliance did the politically astute thing by boycotting the elections. The reasons why last year – when they were within whiskers of a landslide victory – they ‘lost’ was they are allowed themselves to be brow beaten by Roberts under pressure from Jammeh, when they allowed that last minute change in the electoral "laws" that in effect allowed foreigners who were illegally registered and whose names were not on the electoral register to vote in the presidential elections. By boycotting the elections, they are doing the decent thing; and, most importantly, they are not helping legitimise a bizarre and criminally flawed electoral process as some members of the "opposition within the opposition" are currently doing.
It is interesting that these wavering "opposition" elements, especially PDOIS, that wasted a lot ink writing impotent letters protesting at Roberts’ illegal chairmanship, and even hinting at boycotting the presidential elections, are now claiming the process is free and fair. As you rightly pointed out, these are the same people who boycotted the Kiang and Baddibu by-elections on matters of principle. At the time, honest members of the genuine opposition applauded this move. But by bizarre twists of fates, and without any proper explanation, PDOIS decided to partake in the presidential elections and threw their much-vaunted principles into bin. So much for sticking to principles through thick and thin! Now they have the nerves to question the Alliance’s rights to jettison a fundamentally flawed electoral process as the one they – PDOIS – are now participating in. But all this is a pointer that politically, morally and intellectually, PDOIS is inconsistent and even in decline. You are right to say that the Alliance should never cooperate with these wavering opposition elements. You are also right to point out that in the instance when the PDOIS boycotted the Kiang and Baddibu by-election – based on principles they said – they didn’t come out in full support of the UDP candidates; rather, they wrote biased accounts of the by-elections in their political organ, Foroyaa, which was full of condescending tones and even deriding the notion of a united opposition platform against the incumbency. Now they have the nerves to argue that the Alliance should tell their supporters to come out in their numbers and support their candidates in the National Assembly elections, which the Alliance is boycotting? Is there no end to how ridiculous and inconsistent these people can be? If anything, all these are a pointer to my convictions that: morally, intellectually and politically, PDOIS is not only inconsistent when it comes to the Jammeh question, but, most crucially, we may even be witnessing their decline.
The Alliance should stick to their principled position, i.e., boycotting the elections and even tell their supporters not to vote at all. This move would strengthen their position rather than weaken it. They should not allow themselves to be lulled by bogus arguments from wavering opposition elements that Alliance supporters should vote, and vote for their candidates. Radically, I propose that if Alliance supporters bother themselves to vote at all, then let them strategically vote for the APRC, and let the APRC win all the seats in the Assembly. After all, what is the purpose of having two or three wavering, impotent oppostion Assembly members in an Assembly where Jammeh rides roughshod? Better to let the Assembly be chock-a-bloc with mediocrity, sycophancy and impotency. That way, Jammeh would be hard-pressed to attach any semblance of multi-party democracy in the Gambia. Also, it would reduce the Assembly to what the current state of Gambian public life is: the celebration of mediocrity and pursuit of interests that are inimical to the common interest. This radical but strategically appropriate move is something worth pondering over.
Once again, many thanks for your lucid exposition of all salient issues you continue to raise.
Ngorr Ciise
Fiat iustitia ruat caelum! - Let justice be done though the heavens fall!
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----Original Message Follows----
From: Dampha Kebba <
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Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list <
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To:
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Subject: Why an Election BOYCOTT is Justified
Date: Tue, 8 Jan 2002 13:08:59 -0500
I had promised to refrain from talking about Party politics in The Gambia,
but hey, what the heck. This is not the first such promise that I have
broken and it would certainly not be the last. Needless to say, I think it
was highly commendable and gutsy for the UDP Alliance to draw a line in the
sand and when the IEC crossed the line, for the Alliance to make good on its
promise. UDP should stand on their ground and boycott these bogus elections
that the IEC is conducting. Moreover, UDP should ignore preposterous calls
from other ‘Opposition Parties’ and the press that the UDP should support
the candidature of PDOIS and NRP nominees. I have not yet read a more
ridiculous suggestion. How can UDP boycott the elections (for the reasons
it stated) and then turn around and support candidates partaking in an
election UDP does not recognize as legitimate? UDP should have nothing to
do with these elections.
It is absurd for Opposition members such as PDOIS to advocate for UDP to
partake in these illegal elections and then challenge the blatant
irregularities in court later. We all know that that is an exercise in
futility. Of course no court is going to overturn the election of APRC
candidates. If Opposition parties such as PDOIS and NRP are behaving as if
we have a flawless electoral process, I wonder what court will recognize the
flaws after-the-fact. The pretence in Banjul is just out of this world. I
have never seen a more bizarre election.
The most fundamental thing about any election is to determine who the voters
are. We have an elaborate process of registration of voters, publication of
the registers, scrutiny of the registers by political parties, court
challenges of illegal registration, etc. People lose their lives trying to
ensure that only eligible voters are registered. During the presidential
campaign, a UDP stalwart lost his life while partaking in events concerning
the registration of voters. Now, do people want to throw all these out of
the window and allow APRC to doctor the registers? When UDP stood up this
time around to ensure that only eligible Gambians should vote, people are
criticizing them for standing up for Gambians. This is absurd. What
happened to pressurizing Gabriel Roberts to do what is right? UDP did not
just boycott the election for fun. They first of all asked Gabriel Roberts
to do certain things. Realizing that Roberts will not do those things, the
Party decided to boycott and not be seen as legitimizing a flawed process.
Energy should be focused on Roberts to do what is right. You do not just
sit back and take abuse because the abuser refuses to stop abusing you. You
fight back to make the abuser stop.
This brings me to the pathetic press statements Roberts made trying to
undermine UDP’s decision. It is telling that in this day and age, when this
illegal regime wants to justify certain actions, it points to Decrees and
not Acts of Parliament. Goes to show that we still have a Dictatorship back
home. Roberts says that it is justified for voters to move their
registration from constituency to constituency because the Election Decree
says so. Well, Yaya’s Indemnity Decree also says that it is justified to
slaughter our children. Does that make the actions of April 10 and 11, 2000
justified? The whole point about having constituency boundaries is to
ensure that people vote in areas where they genuinely reside in. Some
election laws even go to the extent of stipulating that one cannot vote in a
particular constituency unless one resides in that place for a certain
number of months. But according to Roberts, in Gambia we have a Decree that
allows voters to ‘move’ their votes from constituency to constituency
willy-nilly. Talk about bizarre laws.
Is Roberts telling us now that APRC supporters that reside in constituencies
where APRC has little or no opposition can (willy-nilly) transfer their
votes to Opposition strongholds? I challenge Roberts and his supporters in
the Opposition (PDOIS and NRP) to name me one Democratic country in the
world that allows such bizarre practices. With such practices there is no
need for gerrymandering. Rather than redistricting, ‘vote-riggers’ can just
‘move’ their supporters around.
This is like going into a soccer game without being sure whether your
opponent is going to field 11 players at a time. For Parties like PDOIS and
NRP to miss this rudimentary point, is just mind-boggling to me. How on
earth can one partake in an election without knowing who the voters are?
For all we know the entire population of Casamance can partake in our
elections. All the people in Foni can ‘move’ their registration to Bakau
and ensure that they dilute the Opposition vote. Roberts misses the point
totally when he parade bogus numbers to show the magnitude of the illegality
UDP is complaining about. What is relevant here is the (bizarre) practice
of ‘moving’ votes. It does not matter how many votes are ‘moved’. One
thousand, one hundred thousand – it does not matter. What Roberts does not
realize (and am frankly not surprise that the mental midget did not get it)
is that if UDP conceded his point because 1,500 votes were ‘moved’, UDP is
opening the gates for 150,000 votes to be ‘moved’. I hope Roberts get it
this time that people are complaining about the integrity of the
‘Registers’. Millions of Dalasis were spent in order to produce doctored
registers that the IEC used to steal the elections for Yaya. I hope UDP
stands its ground this time and ensure that Roberts does not make them a
party to this continuing fraud.
I saw in Roberts’ pathetic press statements that he side-stepped the issue
about his controversial decision to change his mind at the eleventh hour to
allow an ‘un-vetted’ register be used in the presidential election. Clearly
the man does not have anything to say for himself. The only reason he
changed his mind about what register to use was because APRC had earlier
vowed that only the doctored register will be used. Simple as that.
UDP should not listen to PDOIS, NRP and the IEC. PDOIS boycotted the Kiang
and Baddibu by-elections for reasons (Roberts’ appointment) that ensued
during the presidential elections and still ensue as we speak. During those
by-elections, I did not hear PDOIS campaigning for UDP. Let PDOIS give us a
break and just go ahead and legitimize this illegal regime if that is what
they want to do. It is their prerogative to partake in the elections. I
wish them luck in the challenges they are going to make after the elections
in an attempt to overturn some of the (certain) ‘victories’ of APRC
candidates. This naivete is just hilarious. If PDOIS believe that they can
overturn APRC elections in the country, then I have a bridge to sell them.
Participants in elections do not have to wait until after elections to
‘challenge’ the voter rolls. The decision about who is eligible to be on
the rolls has to be made BEFORE the elections. According to the IEC
interpretation of our Election Decree aliens can vote in Gambia and Foni
people are also able to transfer their votes to Bakau willy-nilly. One
misses the boat if one does not fight this illegality BEFORE the elections.
The crux of the matter is: who is eligible to vote at what constituency?
The most fundamental thing about elections. PDOIS and NRP are ready to
venture the soccer field with eleven players and NO ASSURANCE from the
referee (IEC) and the opponent (APRC) as to how many players the opponent
will field. For all we know APRC can field aliens from planet Mars. I hope
the UDP Alliance does not take part in this ridiculous charade.
KB
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