Imagine in 2006 after the Gambian people have voted, and the majority of the people who have voted are convinced that they have voted the incumbent government out of power. Also, imagine the incumbent government trying to skew the election in their favor. What will be the reaction of the Gambian people? This is where the unexpected will happen. If the majority of the Gambian people sincerely voted their incumbent government out of power, I am apt to believe that they will exert their power to make their will stand. What is this power? And, how can it be manifested? When I think about democracy, I think about an ideal. An ideal that is good, noble and is desirable. What makes this ideal not to conform with the reality is the characteristic nature of the people who shape that reality. Thus reality is the sum total of the social, economic, political, moral, cultural and religious underpinings to which a society is anchored. The ideal is to make such a reality better; the ideal is to make such a reality people-oriented, in essence to make such a reality democratic. It is this ideal; this democractic appeal to better governance, the rule of law and social justice that directs and dictates the minds of conscientious people who will make it a social as well as a political reality. True, we have dictatorships and hostile regimes who denigrate the state's instruments of governing to serve their own selfish interest, and institute instruments of coercion to instil fear, create docility and apathy, and make the people subservient to the whims and caprices of one individual. This is the reality to which the "superstitious" nature of democracy has been most pertinent; this is also the reality that the democractic forces wants to change for the better. What makes the difference is the appropriation of power as an instrument of subjugation by those who want to maintain the status-quo, as opposed to the appropriation of power as an instrument of democractisation by those who want to change the status-quo. The mechanism in which such a power is instituted to defend the integrity of the state; to resist the denigration of the state's instruments as a coercive force of subjugation against the will of the people, is the challenge that is central to the democratic struggle. The state and its institutions, within the framework of our constitutional setting, is the only form of organized social structure to which we all subjugate our freedom either freely or coercively. To which we all relegate our power, which carry the force of law and can also be abused as a vehicle to subvert the will and power of the people. But, so far as it has been clearly delineated that power belongs to the people, and on whose behalf governments derive their authority to govern, I believe the people can always take back this authority to govern. Rene いいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいい To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html To Search in the Gambia-L archives, go to: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/CGI/wa.exe?S1=gambia-l To contact the List Management, please send an e-mail to: [log in to unmask] いいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいいい