ELECTION AFTER SHOCK IN THE GAMBIA!!
DEMOCRATIC DICTATORSHIP or DICTATORIAL DEMOCRACY- the African curse!
😂😂😂😂😂😂ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ðŸ˜
For the "image" (forget the substance) of African "democracy" this Gambian U-turn is a huge hammer to the head of our continental institutional progress!
"Just when we thought things were going......."
But let us shelf that lengthy story for another day!
Personally, I think the Gambian Opposition kicked themselves in the very teeth when senior opposition figures in the government-to-be immediately started issuing statements willy nilly pointing towards the possible "arrest and trial" of "outgoing" president Yayah Jammeh. Even the presumed winner, Adama Barrow, started announcing major public policy reversals before he had actually griped the tope: in a TV interview Barrow vowed to stay as a member of the International Court of Justice, and the Common wealth. The intent makes perfect sense, but the timing was lousy!
In the wake of the elections, Fatoumata Jallow-Tambajang, a senior member of the coalition that is supposed to have kicked out Jammeh is quoted to have told the UK based Guardian Newspaper this: “He (meaning Jammeh) can’t leave. If he leaves, he’s going to escape us. We are stopping him from leaving. We are negotiating. He said he wants to go to Kanilai (his village) Any day he tells us he wants to go abroad, then we say no. It’s the presidential prerogative.”
So clearly, the "winning side" were baying for blood. They were beginning to encircle Jammeh and waiting to swoop. Considering the things he is accused to have done in office, obviously, the guy would have felt that his life (and that of his family) were firmly on the line here. So he has decided to launch what may arguably be described as "a second coup"! How this pans out is a story we are waiting to see!
By jubilantly tearing down (or allowing to be tore down) Jammeh's giant public photos and loudly calling for his physical "arrest and trials", I believe that the Gambian opposition made a strategic blunder sparked out by the euphoria of unexpected results coupled with a huge dose of political naivety!
The opposition failed to realise that you can't taunt a wounded bull by prodding him with a butcher's knife before it is properly tied up and lined up for the slaughterhouse!
In the first place, Jammeh hadn't (hasn't) handed over the baton. The dude was/is still THE PRESIDENT until January, 2017, with every drop of power still gushing in his boiling torso.
Perhaps, even more importantly, they should have factored in the fact that DICTATORS (especially the African brand) don't "give up power" just like that and quietly "retire to their village to become farmers" or join the village choir!
They are either chased down to their violent graves or (more recently) to a lonely cell room in The Hague.
Just name the lot and judge for yourself: if you are an African dictator, you either dish out 95% of your country's cake to your Western "protectors" and live large on the piling carcass of your own people, or you TAWA on the throne on the strength of your own demerits! That is the score!
Mobutu knew this trick, so he never even bothered to call an election. All he did was to tell his western "benefactors" to come in and take out what they wanted. Then he was fine for decades, dictator or no dictator!
From Eyasingbe Iyademi of Togo to Hastings Kamuzu Banda of Malawi, and Omar Bongo of Gabon to Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, their extraordinary longevity in power can be nailed down not to democratic niceties but by "buying favour from afar" with their nations' resources while they whiled their time bludgeoning their countrymen to dastardly "democratic" submission.
After slaughtering his predecessor and stealing for so long, Blaise Campaore is now shuttling between Abidjan and an exclusive Parisian suburb without a fly winking. He may not have been good for the Burkinabes who rose up and chased him out, but he certainly was a "good boy" for the "big boys".
That is the short story of "African Democracy"!
Of course, the few African leaders who have made their countries to be largely dependent on the largesse of foreign donors for multiple interventions sometimes for things as mundane as toothpaste, or as essential as paying salaries for government workers, such "leaders" have no INSURANCE backers out there waiting to hide them from the mob. They don't qualify to be placed in the "protected" category of the Mobutus who had "materials" to dish or the Campaore's who acted to reverse the positive strides of a progressive continental giant like Thomas Sankara.
For the west, such leaders (not all dictators), are so utterly dispensable that they can never afford to mess about with elections and get away with it IF THEIR PEOPLE DECIDE TO CHASE THEM OUT OF OFFICE! They would simply have nowhere to run to!
JAMMEH IS DIFFERENT, in the sense that he doesn't answer to much "outside calls" when he is doing his "inside job"! Never has!
But ultimately, the one lesson that The Gambians would be waking up to this Saturday morning is that hard fact of history which teaches us that AFRICAN DICTATORS DONT LOSE ELECTIONS WITH A GENUINE SMILE HOVERING ON THEIR SHINNY FACES.
In fact dictators don't LOSE any elections at all! Or there would be hell to pay for it!
The only solution is that where a people are ruled by a dictator and that dictator is preparing for an "election" the people should make him aware that they retain the option of physically chasing him out if he should "fluff off" or they should be prepared to succumb to a forgone result! PERIOD!
President Yahya Jammeh of the Gambia Friday rejected the results of last weeks election accusing the country’s electoral commission of committing ‘unacceptable mistakes’.
Mr Jammeh, 51, who has ruled the Gambia since July 1994, lost the election to Adama Barrow of the opposition coalition.Final results by the electoral commission said Mr Barrow secured 227, 708 votes representing 43 per cent of the general votes while Mr Jammeh secured 208, 487 votes representing 40 per cent of the votes.
Mr Jammeh had initially conceded defeat and praised the country’s electoral system as “the most transparent election in the whole world,” adding that he would not contest the result.
Speaking at the time, he said: “I take this opportunity to congratulate Mr Adama for his victory. It’s a clear victory. I wish him all the best and I wish all Gambians the best. As a true Muslim who believes in the Almighty Allah I will never question Allah’s decision. You Gambians have decided.”
 |
| Gambia's Elections Have been Disputed |
But in a televised statement on state television, Mr Jammeh said: “After the acceptance of my results without any query, the IEC chairman wrote the following statement: “The tabulation of the 2016 Presidential election results from 53 constituencies was done correctly.
Furthermore, regional election results were also tabulated correctly from Banjul to Basse Administrative Areas. However, when the total votes per region were being tallied, certain figures were inadvertently transposed.
“Instead of adding the total number of votes polled by Adama Barrow in Basse administrative area, the IEC added the total number of ballots cast for Basse administrative area to Adama Barrow’s total number of votes thus swelling the number of votes Mr Barrow polled nationally.
This error was repeated across for other contesting candidates. Having noticed this, the error is now corrected. He added: “The total number of votes transposed was not mentioned. How they rectified the error was not
And with their rectification, the came up with this results. For Adama Barrow 227, 708 votes, for me 208, 487 votes and for Mamma Kandeh 89, 768 votes.
“Another thing that is unprecedented in the 22 years that I have been in power is that all the political parties were called to the IEC headquarters on Monday to tell them that there were errors made not from the part of the electorates but from the IEC which are unacceptable.
“On this note, I want to make it very clear that in the same way that I accepted faithfully the results believing that the IEC was independent and honest and reliable, I hereby reject the results in totality. Let me repeat, I will not accept the results based on what has happened.”
Mr Jammeh said throughout this week his party have been conducting investigations to get to the bottom of what has happened and why over 300,000 registered voters did not vote in the election.
“Our investigations revealed that in some cases voters were told that the opposition had already won and there was no need for them to vote and out of anger some of them returned home,” he said.
Mr Jammeh recommended fresh and transparent election which will be officiated by God-fearing and independent IEC body. He called on the public to remain united, peaceful and to continue going out on their businesses. - Online Sources
Read more at http://www.tinzwei.com/2016/12/unacceptable-mistakes-gambias-jammeh.html#Yo9btFAEpk0PtWGv.99
Comments