Editorial: www.allgambian.net
 
By Sarjo Bayang, Editor-In-Chief Allgambian.net
 
There is a bottleneck effect in Gambian politics as everyone tries heading for an exit from the tyranny of military dictatorship. Crying loud for help seems to attract no ready response from heaven above neither a finger of the big hands that can salvage. Everyone seems to take as pure Gambian burden and that only Gambia’s good hands can handle it. Gambia remains in very dangerous and critically unsuitable political environment. There is no reason to be in self denial.
 
Out there somewhere a deep voice seems saying to those dare ones, ‘go for it there is light at end of tunnel’. Talks about unity keep falling on hopeless grounds. A desire to undo military dictatorship of a self imposing president is not enough to get something done. People are tired is what you hear many complain.
 
Gambia’s opposition parties have not succeeded where rooting out a despot regime counts as ultimate goal. Some people will tell you the opposition fails to identify their priorities. The ambition to win seems frozen down chambers when final votes are announced each time in the last 14 years since the military declared a sham transformation to civilian rule.
 
 Though the president may not be seen in military uniform his mind and conduct remain largely militaristic. When they staged a coup that brought them to power, the military created super laws in the form of decrees. Some of those decrees are still stuck as part of Gambian laws and many opponents fall victim because of those illegal magnets.
 
To have military instruments of rule and still calling it civilian democracy is where everything keeps going wrong in Gambian politics. If any politician thinks you can beat the hostile sea waves of Gambia’s dangerous and unsuitable political environment there is much work than what comes on surface.
 
Solution to current perils of Gambian politics can be challenging but not impossible. The sitting president is part of that dangerous and unsuitable environment making things much harder for Gambia to regain healthy atmosphere of decent politics. The manner he came to power makes the president behave the way he does. On his part, bid for recognition means selling his image to the clouds at all cost. That is why all the projects and infrastructure run as high profile political image building to please a president who still craves for recognition. The president is so consumed over his image that those who question his motives are listed for all form and manner of brutal treatment once they come within reach of state agents.
 
 In recent times, it is the president’s two young children who are set on the public tender board as mushrooming philanthropists to inherit the financial empire he created since seizing power in July 1994. The president said several times his wealth is so huge even in the next world he is assured of ascending with comfort and style. He openly stated that his next several generations will never know poverty. By the manifests of how the president’s two baby children can now pledge donations of One Million Gambian Dalasi it is clear that the president truly holds large reserves of money whatever his sources.
 
 
Such is how much a political ruler believes in the power of cash to keep the seat for long as he lives. When then is the hope of snatching that seat by votes keeps the opposition expecting political change through decency? 
 
Due to his fervent interest to remain in power till he dies, Gambia’s sitting president is ready to employ dangerous and unsuitable tactics if that means staying on until the day his own chosen person emerges to inherit. 
 
Gambia’s Independent Electoral Commission IEC has everything save the independence to declare another winning candidate apart from those belonging to the president’s party. They (the Electoral Commission) unflinchingly serve the reserved interest of incumbency. 
 
Opposition parties have not gained sufficient wisdom to recognise that they indeed continue playing a game to consolidate the grips by an overtly ambitious president who reserves the winning card after all. In more respectable ways of putting it, the role of opposition in Gambia is to serve as pillars of sham democracy in the name of multi partisan politics. It remains reserved property of Gambia’s incumbent to keep the seat of government in several rounds with timeless limits.  
 
Winning elections is possible for Gambia’s opposition only when current hurdles are taken care of. This will require decency on the part of incumbencies to step aside and let genuine contenders sell to the electoral populace. The talk about Gambia belonging to all as deceitfully pronounced by those in government is a misleading statement. For everyone to join hands and working with the incumbent is a lame notion of patriotism where all doors are closed for unconditional popular participation. 
 
That brings out the burning desire to have a term limit especially for the presidency. Even at divisional levels term limits are good enough to permit other young political participants fulfil a desire to serve. That is not very much what any sitting politician wants to buy. It goes like once a person wins an election, by natural selection that person stays on till he or she dies. 
 
Even if people in their various districts prefer keeping a life serving political rep that is not still a good fit for national position of president. All said and done, unless the sitting president plays better moral sense of rendering the high seat in peace, all other political parties will fall in pieces in the infinite spell of time. Gambia’s political environment is not suitable. It is also dangerous because political opponents run the risk of life and death when it comes to snatching the seat by orderly exercise of political rights. Many will still want to venture but without rectifying the dangerous and unsuitable political environment all cards end up in the deep pocket of perpetrators with the manipulating hands of an Electoral Commission playing actively for hidden long hands incumbency. 
 

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