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Gambia News: Another Death Knell for Democracy

D. A. Jawo

It is indeed quite hard to understand why, while the rest of the African continent is well on the road to democracy and good governance, this country is moving in the opposite direction, as it is clearly manifested by the unprecedented decision of the National Assembly to abdicate its responsibilities and give such sweeping powers to President Jammeh to take over direct responsibility of the administration of all the municipal councils.

What is even more ridiculous, are the sweeping powers given to him to also remove mayors/chairpersons of councils as well as all other elected representatives of the people. Of course, he did not need the National Assembly to give him such powers, because he had already been exercising them without any legal backing. We can recall that he arbitrarily removed the Mayors of Banjul City Council (BCC) and the Kanifing Municipal Council (KMC) as well as the Chairman of Brikama Area Council. Therefore, the authorization by the National Assembly was merely to formalize what already existed in practise.

However, by allowing themselves to be used to rubber stamp such undemocratic legislation, members of the National Assembly have clearly shown Gambians that they represent President Jammeh's interests instead of the interests of the people who elected them. There is absolutely no way that anyone can justify giving President Jammeh the power to remove people directly elected by the people, just like him. I agree with Sidia Jatta that if President Jammeh is given the power to remove at will those directly elected by the people, then there is absolutely no point in anyone seeking election. This is just another additional death knell for democracy in this country.

Of course, this sort of trend has been going on since the very beginning. We have seen the government, using the rubber stamp National Assembly to amend the Constitution and remove the provision that called for the election of chiefs, no doubt after the regime realized from the Sami chieftaincy elections that there was no way they can manipulate the system in their favour. There is no doubt that the next move would be to abolish local government elections and give him the power to be appointing people to manage all the local government structures.

Therefore, this latest move is just a continuation of the trend to bring the entire local government structure under the direct control of the President so that he can continue to put in only those people he can easily manipulate.

However, with the negative role that the National Assembly has played in helping President Jammeh to consolidate his iron-grip hold of all the democratic institutions, the members have really abdicated their responsibilities to the people of this country and as such, those who voted for that undemocratic law have lost any credibility they ever had in representing the people. It is therefore hard to see how the people can ever re-elect them when they have clearly shown that they have no regard for the welfare of the people of the country and they are ready to rubber stamp anything presented to them by President Jammeh.

It is indeed a shame that while the rest of the continent is consolidating democracy and good governance, we in this country are moving in the opposite direction. With this latest move on the local government structure, it is now hard to see the United Nations system contributing to our local government decentralisation process, because instead of decentralising, we seem to be putting everything in the hands of the president.

In view of this therefore, there is absolutely no way that anyone would now take this country seriously when it comes to democratisation. We have shown them that instead of moving with the tide of democratisation, we are retrogressing to the dark old days.