Buharry, thanks for your post. Let me try and make something very clear at
the onset. I take full responsibility for not clarifying that in my earlier
response to your post and I apologize for that. When I replied you, there
were portions in which I was trying to respond to other postings that
touched on issues regarding the general theme of the discourse. I took it
for granted that you will recognize that some of the points I raised were
not necessarily ascribed to you and you will not take credit for them. My
bad. In areas that I was not responding to you, I should have made it
abundantly clear that I was not talking to you. Rather than just assume that
people will notice that. As you can probably tell by your busy schedule, it
is virtually impossible to respond directly to all the postings one might
want to respond to. So, at times what I try to do, is send a message through
other postings. I hope you realize that I was not trying to put words in
your mouth, so to speak. I was very careful not to ascribe to you statements
that you did not make.

That aside, I will try and respond to your questions. If you reread my first
quotation you will realize that I was talking about the UDP leadership and
not the party per se. I still think it is a mistake to engage in a blame
game as far as handling the aftermath of the elections is concerned. We can
certainly analyze the results and see where we went wrong. We all have our
views about where things went wrong. My personal view is that the major
culprit here was vote-buying. You see, if one has that view, one will not
then turn around and blame the UDP leadership for not putting forward a good
message or not being up to the job. That was where I was coming from when I
said that we should not be too hard on UDP (in this instance). I do not
believe it was their fault that they lost the election. This is my personal
view. You may disagree with that. Fine. I will try and convince you if I
can, if not, I will just let you be.

I will not get into the discussion of whether I prefer one party to another
or one leader to another. The G_L archives attest to the fact that, for me,
my primary concern is to have a united opposition to defeat Yaya. I support
all the Opposition parties that I believe share that goal (of having a
united opposition) with me. UDP was the party that was most relevant to the
discussion that we were having. Naturally, if I want to come to the defense
of the Opposition, I would have to speak about UDP and not NRP or PDOIS.
Please find time and check the archives; then you will have no doubt that I
am advocating for one Opposition party at the expense of another Opposition
party that shares my goal. In short, I am not trying to stop anyone from
taking UDP on if they wish. But I feel it is within my rights to point out
to my friends that it is counterproductive to cut the hand that feeds you.

The second point you raised also evinced some misunderstanding between us.
That is my fault. I did not reread my post, but if my recollection serves me
right, around the paragraph you quoted, I had made it clear that your
suggestions were great as we moved forward towards October. I thought that
was enough to communicate to you that I took you statements in good faith as
food for thought for October and not as Monday Morning quarterbacking. I
know you are a very busy man. I was by no means suggesting that you should
not contribute to the debate for October. On the contrary, I fervently want
you to contribute to that debate. You know that. Having said that, I am sure
you will agree with me that it does not do the Opposition any good if we
stay mute until after the election is lost and then start engaging in
counterproductive finger-pointing.

As far as communicating the message is concerned, I think we are both
talking about the same thing. So I will not dwell on that. Suffice for me to
say that when I raised that issue, therein laid the extent to which I will
admonish the Opposition for the election debacle. If one reads that
properly, one will realize that I was not saying that UDP and the Opposition
should not be 'put on the spot'.

The last issue you touched also does not show that we are far apart. Some of
what I said there was addressed directly to you. Unfortunately those
portions were not quoted. Again, if my recollection serves me right, when I
spoke about human rights, I addressed you, Buharry, directly. And I pointed
out to you why I thought it was important to our people. I also pointed out
that we can do a better job with the delivery on that issue. Again, I will
ask you to indulge me and when you reread my post, please do not take credit
for things you did not say in your earlier posting.

Our major difference here might be our reasons for why the elections was
'lost'. You do not seem to attach too much importance on the fact that votes
were bought to disenfranchise UDP supporters. I do. If we have this
disagreement, then we will also not agree about who to blame for the debacle
and to what extent.

Lastly, I still maintain that it is unfair to assume that because APRC
'won', UDP did not tackle the issues the way they should have. I do not
believe you have all the facts in your hands. With your busy schedule, I can
only assume that you were not doggedly following the UDP campaign trail and
you do not know all the issues they discussed and how they discussed them. I
do not think that UDP politicians are inept enough to go to Kiang, meet
farmers and their plight, and instead of discussing the groundnut fiasco,
they start discussing lack of electricity in Banjul. I might be giving UDP
'too much credit' here, but I just cannot imagine this level of inefficiency
in the Opposition. Your concluding sentences evinced the major gulf between
us as far as analyzing these results is concerned. From the onset, I
concluded that APRC cannot win on the issues. I said that they cheated in
order to win. They themselves admitted that they cheated. So, rather than
blaming UDP for something I do not think is a problem, my efforts were
geared at trying to avoid this cheating. Having said that, I also recognized
that we also have those misguided people that voted for APRC. We need to do
some work on these people too. That is where election proponents like
yourself should come in. I encourage you to do so.
KB


>From: MOMODOU BUHARRY GASSAMA <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: The by-elections: My Take
>Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2001 20:02:37 +0200
>
>Hi Kebba!
>       I have to first of all apologise for not replying earlier but I
>simply
>have not been able to. Thanks for bringing in your perspectives. You wrote:
>
>"It will be a mistake for us to be hard on the UDP leadership and the
>electorate."
>
>Could you please quantify why you think the UDP should not be put on the
>spot like other parties such as APRC, PDOIS, NRP etc.? Is it not a form of
>disservice to them if one treats them with rubber gloves even when there is
>something to be pointed out? I do not have anything against the UDP. In
>fact, I am impressed with some of their leaders and policies but that
>should
>not mean that if they are seen to be making mistakes one should not point
>it
>out. My opinion is that all political parties and their representatives, as
>public figures vying to control the destiny of our country, should be put
>on
>the spot to make them realise that they are being watched so that they do
>not become complacent.
>
>You also wrote:
>
>"It is very easy to engage in this Monday morning quarter-backing and
>second
>guessing of what went wrong here."
>
>What I attempted to do in my post was not to apportion blame but to provide
>humble analyses, which hopefully will be helpful. I strongly believe that
>there are a thousand lessons to be learnt from every failure. I will not
>argue with the fact that my contributions on the L in general and pre the
>elections have been trickling but that is due to other engagements that
>limit the amount of time I have to engage in debates. That however does not
>mean that issues that are of significance to The Gambia are not discussed
>and dealt with in other places. The by-elections were a test for the
>opposition in the country and the activities of the opposition prior to and
>what they do after the elections will have a significant impact in the
>coming elections. The UDP performed less than most expected and thus the
>outcry. It will be fine to keep quiet and not put the UDP, the largest
>opposition, on the spot to at least jolt them into further analyses of what
>went wrong for them this time and how they can avoid them come the next
>elections. Would this not be a disservice to them? I do not want to appear
>to be chattering about this but I believe that even if one did not have
>time
>prior to the by-elections to contribute, one can make contributions now in
>the form of analyses etc. in light of the fact that the big prizes are yet
>to come.
>
>You wrote:
>
>"As opined by many, including yourself, the fact that the Opposition did
>not
>carry Kiang shows that our message is not adequately engraved in the
>electorate. We should accept responsibility for that and not try to say
>that
>the people did not get it because they are stupid. That does not mean that
>the message is wrong."
>
>I did not say that the message is wrong or that the people are stupid.
>Regarding the message, one can have the absolute best message but without
>the right delivery, the message fails to make its point. It is a simple
>case
>of marketing. One can have the best product in the world but with
>inadequate
>marketing strategies, someone else with a much inferior product will
>outsell
>and outdo him/her. Elections have in the past generally not been premised
>on
>issues but on which party can create the most fanfare and create a sense of
>this candidate is my uncle's friend, or my neighbour's sister or our
>grandparents were friends etc. feeling. This is not unique to The Gambia
>but
>is a characteristic prevalent in most developing countries due mostly to
>poverty and illiteracy. That is why many politicians of the First Republic
>who only remembered the electorate every five years were able to win
>landslides election after election. The emphasis is on marketing. Even
>though these politicians had nothing to offer the people, they knew how to
>entice them into voting for them. It is therefore important to have an
>effective means of delivery.
>  Regarding the people, I did not say that they are stupid. What I said was
>whether they have been given too much credit in the face of circumstances
>that render them victims to those with less than honourable political
>machinations. Something is wrong somewhere when one sells his/her voters
>card for 25 Dalasis or 2000 Dalasis. The essence is to find that wrong
>something and remedy it be it through enlightenment about the importance of
>a single vote or through other means such as vigilance on the part of the
>parties.
>
>You further wrote:
>
>"Instead of second guessing UDP now, Gambians with functioning brains (not
>to mention journalists and other Opposition parties) should have been
>talking about these ISSUES BEFORE the elections and showing how APRC cannot
>take the country forward. You do not wait until after the elections and say
>that APRC might have won on the ISSUES. What issues? Surely, the issues I
>read from Foroyaa and heard from calls made to Gambia, cannot be winners
>for
>APRC. Clowns on G_L and elsewhere theorizing that UDP might have lost these
>elections because they did not discuss the ISSUES, do not know what they
>are
>talking about. Gambian newspapers are replete with reports showing that UDP
>tackled the issues during the campaign rallies."
>
>I did not say anywhere that the APRC won on issues or that the UDP lost on
>issues. What I asked was whether the electorate views the things that we
>view as people living abroad important enough to bring the government down
>over. The central theme of our contention with the government deals with
>human rights issues. This should be important to all people but I know for
>a
>fact that Gambians can be quite detached as long as an issue or an act does
>not directly affect them or their loved ones. Many would in the heat of the
>moment say "ndey saan" but forget about it a day after. The UDP of course
>tackled issues, but my point was whether they tackled the issues dear to
>the
>heart of the electorate in such a manner that they were won over. That is
>the issue. The opposition has to talk about all the issues but has to
>analyse which issues are more important in which part of the country. For
>example, basing an election campaign in Banjul on farming issues would be a
>mistake because the population of Banjul is not engaged in farming. So they
>have to diversify the issues and zero in and hammer home issues that are
>dear to the electorate in various parts of the country with regard to the
>prevailing circumstances and realities. This has to be done effectively in
>order to yield results. I asked whether the APRC delivery machinery was
>more
>effective than UDP's because despite all the human rights issues and all
>the
>problems the farmers and ordinary people are facing, the UDP lost to them.
>This says something and this something must be examined to determine how to
>create an effective delivery system.
>
>  Sorry for this long post. Thanks for the compliments. Have a good
>weekend.
>           Buharry.
>
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