Wednesday, 17 October, 2001, 12:48 GMT 13:48 UK  BBC News
Gambia's election challenge

By West Africa correspondent Mark Doyle in the Gambian capital, Banjul
The president of The Gambia was clearly enjoying himself.
He was standing with head and shoulders through the sunroof of his four
wheel drive, tossing T-shirts to the crowd.

The people, poor rural villagers for the most part, were scrabbling and
fighting for one of the precious garments which, of course, had a smiling
picture of President Yahya Jammeh printed front and back.
Going by a T-shirt poll, it is difficult to call this election. It could be
close.
The green T-shirts of the ruling party are evident wherever President Jammeh
goes. But the yellow T-shirts of the opposition abound in the places they
hold their meetings.
This election is taking place in a country that is the butt of cruel jokes
because of its size.
The story goes that the borders of The Gambia, a long thin spit of land
jutting into the heart of neighbouring Senegal, were determined by
firepower.
More precisely how far the British colonialists could fire a cannon from
their boats on the river that is the spine of country.

Serious challenges
But jokes aside, this election symbolises many of the challenges facing
Africa.
Just before the president arrived at his election rally in a welter of
flying green T-shirts, I was surprised to see a truck with a large
ANTI-AIRCRAFT GUN DRIVE THROUGH THE CROWD( Emphasis mine. Tombong you left
this out of your report.) crowd.
The soldiers on board that truck, and about 100 other troops who
subsequently arrived, were the president's security men.
Presidential aides told me these were quite normal security measures.
Well yes, up to a point, but even in unstable parts of Africa it's only
normal to bring out the big guns if there is a military threat.
In The Gambia there aren't any known armed opponents to the Jammeh regime.
The opposition parties in this election say the display of military hardware
is designed to intimidate the electorate.

Question marks
President Jammeh came to power in 1994 in a bloodless military coup when he
was a young army lieutenant.

Two years later he civilianised his rule in elections widely seen as unfair
because he banned a number of his opponents from standing.
And so there are question marks in Thursday's election about how level the
playing field is between the various candidates.
President Jammeh has all the advantages of incumbency and that incumbency
derives from a military coup.
His supporters say, and they have a point, that he overthrew a lazy and
corrupt civilian government which had done little for The Gambia.
And they add that the opposition coalition is just the old guard in disguise
trying to return to power.

Challenge of democracy
And so what we have in this election is the challenges of democracy in
Africa, but in miniature.
About a half a million voters will decide if they like the dynamic, though
blunt and sometimes brutal former military man. Or perhaps they will prefer
the quietly spoken lawyer Ousseini Darboe, who heads the main anti-military
opposition coalition.

The package tourists who flock to The Gambia for their annual dose of sun
and sea have been watching the convoys of election campaigners with
bemusement.
The foreign visitors, mainly from Britain and Scandinavia, smile and clap
when the people in coloured T-shirts dance along the road.
But they stare in confusion when the anti aircraft guns roll by.
What the tourists think is very important for the Gambia because their hard
cash is the main foreign exchange earner for the country.
When the military coup took place in 1994 there was a sharp drop in tourist
arrivals.
The numbers have gradually picked up again as The Gambia has polished its
image. And in fact the tourists have rarely been troubled by any of the
political hiccups.
Nevertheless, what The Gambia needs on Thursday, if the tourists are to
remain in their cheerful and quite understandable ignorance, is a peaceful
and uneventful election.
The signs of whether that will happen are mixed.
There's been a buoyant and colourful campaign with President Jammeh and the
main opponent Oussseini Darboe driving up and down the river banks in search
of votes.
Tension mounting
But as the day of the election approached tension has mounted with political
thugs causing clashes between the two camps.
On Tuesday a youth was shot dead in a riot.
By the standards of this normally sleepy country this was shocking, and the
hope must now be that reprisals attacks don't take place.
Then the tourists can remain in their fog of innocence, applying their sun
block by the poolside, and spending the cash that the people of this country
so desperately need.




Tombong: Professional ethics should prevent you from posting misleading/
misinforming on the L. GRTS should be rename to APRCTV till October 19th,
2001

MJohnson






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