The Gambia’s “Elected Autocrat
Poverty, Peripherality, and
Political Instability,” 1994–2006
A Political Economy Assessment
By Professor Abdoulaye Saine, Miami University, Oxford OH.
Dr. Abdoulaye Saine, Political Sci. Prof.
This article assesses “democratization” under military and quasimilitary regimes in The Gambia following the 1994 coup d’état until 2006. The “transition” program back to
“civilian” rule in 1996, the 2001 and 2006 presidential elections, and the aftermath of deepening authoritarianism and economic crisis are also evaluated. The formation of a
five–political party coalition, the National Alliance for Democracy and Development, in 2005 raised expectations for a new political dispensation. Its breakup in 2006, however, dashed hope of this occurring. President Jammeh won a third 5-year term amid suffocating external and domestic indebtedness, declining exports, poor economic performance, and endemic corruption. Continued poor leadership and policy choices are likely to exacerbate abject poverty, countercoups, instability, and conflict. McGowan’s neo-Marxist/liberal political economy approach has helped rekindle more critical scholarship on the linkage between underdevelopment and conflict in Africa and the Third World as well as provide an antidote to neo-liberal economic policies.
Keywords: The Gambia; coups d’état; transition; autocrat; economic crisis
One striking example of current extraction by the military is found in the tiny and poor Gambia, where . . . Yahya Jammeh, now in power for over ten years has won presidential elections in 1996 and 2001 and thereby creating one of West Africa’s “elected autocracies.” Patrick McGowan1
More than a decade into what Samuel Huntington’s dubbed the “third wave” of “democratization” in Africa,2 the euphoria that accompanied both the 1994 coup and
the subsequent postcoup political and economic “liberalization” programs in The Gambia has given way to authoritarianism and harrowing poverty. President Yahya
Jammeh’s ineffective leadership combined with poor economic policies and corruption have plunged the economy into a downward spiral of unsustainable external indebtedness, poverty, and instability. Appropriating International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank “economic reform” and “governance” vocabulary—transparency, accountability, probity, and rule of law—Jammeh has used it disingenuously to deflect criticism and pressure by financial institutions for a return to democratic norms. Lt. Yahya Jammeh came to power on July 22, 1994, following a bloodless coup d’état against the Gambia’s founding president, Dawda K. Jawara, who had
ruled this tiny and poor West African country of 1.5 million for almost thirty years.3 Since coming to power, he has systematically used the state or subverted its role to control national resources for his benefit and those closest to him—“retired” military officers and handpicked businessmen. The end result has been national instability nearing collapse.
This article is concerned primarily with analyzing The Gambia’s major postcoup political and economic developments from 1994 to 2006 and the Armed Forces
Provisional Ruling Council’s (henceforth the Ruling Council) “transition” program back to “civilian” rule (1994–96). It also discusses the 2001 and 2006 presidential elections and argues that poor leadership and a lack of commitment to “democratization” negatively affected the economy, which also has taken a steady and dangerous slide toward collapse.
Methodologically, the article proceeds from a historical and chronological assessment that is embedded in international political economy presumptions and its application by McGowan to explain coups and conflict in West Africa, 1955–2004. The political economy approach utilized by McGowan derives in large measure from a neo Marxist/liberal continuum in which the world capitalist system, the centrality of the state, and class hegemony are taken as given. These foundational assumptions are
in stark contrast to the theories of “modernization” and “political development,” which were made popular by Huntington and Janowitz in the 1950s and 1960s. The first section of the article provides a theoretical overview and background politics in the first republic (1965–94), followed by a recap of the major contributory factors to the 1994 coup d’état. A detailed account and analyses of the transition program (1994–96) as well as the 2001 and 2006 presidential elections are undertaken in section two. Section three is an assessment of economic performance under Jammeh, and section four teases out theoretical implications of political economy approaches in the analyses of coups and instability in The Gambia and West Africa. In section five, I conclude.
Theoretical Framework
In his path-breaking study of West Africa from 1955–2004, McGowan used a political economy approach to analyze civil–military relations, coups, and conflicts
in Africa. McGowan contends, while West Africa’s downward spiral is primarily caused by its peripheral political economies and the selfish behavior of many of its leaders—both civilian and military—the failure to reform global trade in agricultural commodities, primarily a failure by the world system’s G-7 core powers, is the major indirect cause of the region’s discontents because it condemns West Africa to a continued trajectory of poverty, peripherality and political instability.4 The importance of the military in the politics and economics of West African states can hardly be overstated. Almost three decades ago, Luckham argued that the military was “Africa’s most important political institution.”5 In the 1990s, Welch also argued that the armed forces remain primary political actors in most states, despite growing democratization in Africa.6 In 2000, N’Diaye opined that despite a changed international system built around ideals of “democracy” and “the rule of law,” the military is still a key player in the politics of African states.7 Houngnikpo put it bluntly: “While credit to economic and political reforms went solely to civil-society, it is a fact that no African country democratizes without the consent, either tacit or explicit of the military.”8 Conteh-Morgan also maintained that the military’s reliance on force and repression as the basic instrument of both governance and political arbitration constituted a major obstacle to democratization in Africa.9
Using McGowan’s earlier characterizations of the Gambia and Africa as points of departure, the article is built around his central proposition that an “elected autocrat in The Gambia condemns it to a trajectory of poverty, peripherality and political instability,” hence the title of the article.
President Yahya Jammeh, a soldier turned presidential candidate, engineered the transition program as well as the 1996 and the 2001 presidential elections to ensure himself victory. He won a third 5-year term after holding “snap” presidential elections in September 2006 that were marred by violence and intimidation against the opposition and its supporters. The political campaigns that he ran and the type of elections that he conducted form a backdrop against which we can assess McGowan’s thesis regarding coups, poverty, and instability in West Africa and the Gambia, specifically. While the article is not a test of McGowan’s thesis per se, it could, nonetheless, provide tentative or anecdotal evidence about its explanatory power or lack thereof.
Four basic questions are distilled from the theoretical discussion and McGowan’s earlier proposition. First, after three presidential elections, has The Gambia finally turned away from its authoritarian past? Second, have succeeding elections improved the quality and fairness of the electoral process, as Lindberg contends, or have they merely served to entrench President Yahya Jammeh’s autocratic rule? Third, what impact has Jammeh’s autocratic rule had on the economy? Finally, what theoretical, empirical, and predictive value does McGowan’s political economy approach hold for The Gambia and West Africa? Before answers to these questions are offered, it is important to provide some background.
Politics in the First Republic: 1965–1994
Since gaining political independence from Britain on February 18, 1965, this Ministate of four thousand square miles and almost surrounded by its much larger neighbor, Senegal, enjoyed relative “peace” when the rest of the continent was mired in political instability. President Dawda Jawara, the country’s founding President, crafted modest development goals and a moderate foreign policy, and
adhered in principle to political democracy, human rights, and an open economy.10
The Gambia and Senegal: A Geographic Oddity
Over the years, these won him much respect both within The Gambia and internationally. The Gambia’s political history under President Jawara, however, resembled a plateau occasionally marred by volcanic eruptions. The general image as projected too often to the outside world was one of a ministate adept at survival, able in spite of its underdevelopment to run a multiparty democracy.
Notwithstanding its democratic tradition, The Gambia under President Jawara continued to have one of the lowest living standards in the continent and ranked 166th in the world out of 173 countries, according to the United Nations Development Program Human Development Index.11 Sembocracy is a word that has often been used by some of his critics to describe the Gambian political experience under President Jawara.12 Sembo is a Mandinka (majority ethnic group in the Gambia) word that means “power” or “force.” It has been used to characterize the careful concealment by the People’s Progressive Party Government of its most authoritarian practices under a veneer of democratic governance. A 1981 coup against President Jawara’s government was staged by elements in
the field force in alliance with civilians while he was away on a visit to Britain.13
Evoking a defense treaty between the Gambia and Senegal, President Jawara convinced President Abdou Diouf of Senegal to intervene militarily in order to restore
constitutional order, but at the cost of four hundred to five hundred lives.14 Following Senegal’s successful intervention, the two presidents agreed to the formation of the Senegambia Confederation.15 Characterized as a “marriage of confusion,” the confederation lasted eight years before a combination of both political and economic factors led to its collapse in 1989.16 Today, The Gambia National Army is the major standing institutional remnant of the Senegambia Confederation, which in a bloodless coup on July 22, 1994, ousted President Jawara from power. The Ruling Council was then established, headed by Lt. Yahya Jammeh, who at the time was younger than thirty years of age.
The 1994 Coup d’etat
Among the various reasons advanced for the 1994 coup d’état, the most important ones related to the complacency of the ruling People’s Progressive Party Government and endemic corruption.17 These factors inspired deep-seated dissatisfaction and disillusionment among the populace, especially its younger section, who became increasingly persuaded that the solution to their problems could be found only outside the framework of President Jawara’s democracy.18 Organizational military factors that included disparity in living conditions between senior Nigerian officers who headed the army and junior Gambian officers was a major source of discontent, as well. Individual ambition, frustration, and dissatisfaction also arose among the junior officers, who perceived their opportunities for advancement limited by the promotion of Nigerian officers to positions of power.19 An indirect cause of the coup lay,
however, in the perennial state of instability in the subregion as well as “contagion” and “reference group” effects of the Strasser-led coup in Sierra Leone.20 Located in the periphery of the global capitalist economy, these countries exhibit weak state structures, which become tools in the hands of civilian or military autocrats to extract rent. These rent-seeking states and the authoritarian structures they spawn make them coup prone.
Similar to other coups in the subregion, the 1994 coup against President Jawara generated considerable excitement and high expectations, especially among Gambian youth. Under the chairmanship of self-promoted Captain Yahya Jammeh, the Ruling Council promised to restore “true democracy,” “transparency,” and “accountability” in government. Chairman Jammeh charged that President Jawara had presided over a system that was riddled with corruption and that as “soldiers with a difference,” they
would protect human rights and govern under the rule of law.
In the end, combined western sanctions came into effect in November 1994, following an alleged coup attempt in which thirty soldiers were summarily executed. In response, the European Union froze all balance of payments support, followed by the suspension of all but humanitarian aid from the United States and Japan, pending a return to democratic rule. A British Foreign Office and Scandinavian government’s “travel advisory” in November, warning their citizens of the Gambia’s volatile political situation, destroyed the tourist industry, the country’s main source of foreign
exchange. Ultimately, the Alliance for Patriotic Re-orientation and Construction Party Government was forced to cut a four-year transition program back to civilian rule to
two, before which Captain Jammeh resigned his commission.
Transition Program to Civilian Rule: 1994–96
In Africa of the 1990s, autocratic leaders, both military and civilian, used several “transition” models to move their authoritarian polities to multiparty political systems.
These included the “national conference,” “guided democratization,” “co-opted democratization” and the “authoritarian reaction” models.21 The latter, which best
approximates the Gambia’s transition program, entails the use of state-sponsored violence against proponents of democracy to preserve the status quo. In this case, the
incumbent leader conducts elections that are neither free nor fair, with the intent of stealing the votes. The promotion of ethnic tensions to divide the opposition and intimidate the general population is often one of the hallmarks of this model. After “winning” the election, the leader subsequently seeks to silence the opposition and the press through such varied means as imprisonment, exile, and in some extreme
instances, assassinations.22 This state of affairs is inherently unstable, and as we shall see, it engendered a poor governance and macroeconomic environment, which precipitated a cycle of repression, poor economic performance, and incipient instability. Let me elaborate.
After a month-long nationwide consultative exercise from May to June 1995 by the National Consultative Committee, a draft constitution was drawn and in August of the same year, a civic education panel was appointed. By December, Chairman Jammeh appointed an eight-person Provisional Independent Electoral Commission to conduct presidential, national assembly, and local government elections. From all indications, it appeared that the Ruling Council had established in good faith a transition framework back to civilian rule. Thereafter, troubling signs began to crop up that placed the transition program and the regime’s commitment to it in question.23
A case in point was the restoration of the death penalty and the passage of Decree 45, which gave powers of search and seizure to national security personnel. Specifically,
Decree 45 was intended to muzzle the press and targeted journalists for systematic harassment, torture, detention, and deportation. In February (seven months before the
September 1996 presidential election), the Ruling Council passed twin Decrees 70 and 71. Decree 70 required individuals to execute D100,000 (US$10,000) to establish a newspaper, and Decree 71 required existing newspapers to pay a similar amount or face closure. These decrees were denounced by domestic and international human
rights organizations alike.24 In fact, the U.S.-based National Democratic Institute for International Affairs closed its offices in Banjul in protest over what its officials perceived as a lack of regime commitment to “free and fair” elections. In a tersely worded response, Chairman Jammeh threatened, “If the Ruling Council refused to hold elections for a thousand years, no one can do any thing about it and anyone against it will go six feet deep.”25 This would become the mantra of Chairman Jammeh and his Ruling Council.
The transition program was placed under further doubt when in February 1996, some rural women’s groups held a peaceful demonstration in Banjul in support of a “no elections” agenda. The Ruling Council’s intentions of conducting free and fair elections were once more put in doubt when on April 12, 1996 (two months before the scheduled June presidential elections), it postponed them by six weeks, the reason being the European Union’s alleged failure to underwrite, in a timely fashion, the election bill. Thereupon, a hastily organized referendum was held over the draft Constitution.26
Referendum over the New Constitution
The draft constitution was adopted in a referendum on August 7, 1996. The new Constitution provides for the separation of powers, lowered the voting age from 21
to 18 years, established the post of ombudsman, and guarantees civil and political liberties and press freedoms. Despite these guarantees, however, the adopted constitution is fundamentally flawed. For instance, when the Ruling Council seized power in 1994, it made much of the fact that the 1970 constitution had no term limits for the President, as a result of which former President Jawara remained in power for almost thirty years. In spite of popular expressions for such limits to the Constitution
Review Commission, the term limits clause was expunged from the constitution. In addition, the Gambia Bar Association, as well as many Gambians, endorsed a forty-year age requirement for the presidency rather than the thirty-year minimum in the 1970 Constitution. Notwithstanding this popular demand, the new constitution
retained the thirty-year age minimum. The adopted constitution also disqualified from seeking the presidency persons who have been “compulsorily retired,” “terminated,” or “dismissed” from public office or have been found liable by a commission of inquiry of “misconduct,” “negligence,” “corruption,” or “improper behavior.” This was a deliberate effort by the Ruling Council to eliminate public officers feared to have political ambitions.27
Subsequently, on August 12, 1996, Chairman Jammeh banned the three main opposition parties, the ex-president, and almost all of his ex-ministers from all-political activity for periods ranging from five to twenty years. The only precoup party that was not banned was the People’s Democratic Organization for Independence and Socialism, a progressive but poorly financed party. On August 17, Colonel Yahya Jammeh resigned his commission and declared his candidature for the presidency.
Then soldier-turned-presidential-candidate Jammeh immediately launched the Alliance for Patriotic and Re-orientation Construction Party (henceforth the Construction Party) and began an “official” countrywide tour before the Provisional Independent Electoral Commission declared the official campaign period open.
Political Campaigning
The official political campaign period was scheduled for seventeen days (September 9–24, 1996) before the presidential election now scheduled for September
26. Candidate Jammeh pleaded with the electorate for the continuance of his development program and to assist him in ridding the country of corruption. He skillfully evoked the excesses of the deposed civilian politician to enhance his appeal with the rural, urban poor and youth. The only serious challenger to Jammeh was Ousainou Darboe, the United Democratic Party’s presidential candidate. Formed shortly before the 1996 presidential elections, Darboe’s United Democratic Party enjoyed considerable support from the banned politicians and their parties. However, this cost him considerably at the polls, because he was seen to be too closely associated with the old guard and its interests. Nevertheless, he mounted a strong campaign and accused Jammeh of intimidation, corruption, and waste. He rekindled charges of a cover-up over the death of the former finance minister Ousman “Korro” Ceesay, who died mysteriously in June 1995. The two remaining presidential candidates were Sidia Jatta, for People’s Democratic Organization for Independence and Socialism, and Hamat Bah, who stood for the National Redemption Party. None could match Jammeh’s war chest, and Dr. Lamin Bojang’s candidacy for the People’s Democratic Party folded due to financial difficulties.
Presidential and National Assembly Election Results
The transition to “civilian rule” ended on September 26, 1996, after 26 months of military rule. It culminated in the election of retired Colonel Yahya Jammeh as the second president of the second republic. Jammeh of the Construction Party won 56 percent of the vote as opposed to 35 percent of the vote won by Darboe of the United
Democratic Party. Darboe’s refusal to accept the election results because “they did not appear to reflect the wishes of the Gambian electorate” and similar concerns raised
by the Commonwealth and the EU tainted President-elect Jammeh’s victory celebrations.
On January 2, 1997, in spite of earlier opposition party threats to boycott them, the national assembly elections were held. The Construction Party won thirty-three
seats to the combined opposition total of twelve seats in the new forty-eight member National Assembly. With four additional members nominated to the assembly by
President-elect Jammeh, the Construction Party regime had complete control of this national body.28
In sum, a plethora of malpractices affected the credibility of both the transition program and the presidential elections. The Ruling Council established the rules and controlled the transition totally in its favor. It then proceeded to doctor the constitution to engineer the outcomes of both the referendum and presidential elections. The run-up to the presidential elections was also marred by violence, intimidation, and electoral malpractices that were worrisome to domestic and international monitors alike. In the end, both the legal and political processes were manipulated precisely to suit the political aspirations of Chairman Jammeh. The Gambia’s transition program parallels both the expectations and predictions of the authoritarian reaction model, as President Jammeh used the state apparatus as well as its financial resources and media
outlets to “win.” He also used the state’s security apparatus to repress, intimidate, and brutalize opposition leaders and used the constitution to eliminate opposition and threats to his self-succession goals. These practices by Jammeh appear to be consistent with McGowan’s analysis regarding peripherality and consequent competition to retain power for short-term economic goals.
The period from 1997 to 2000 saw the further entrenchment of an authoritarian state. The Gambia National Army remained without doubt President Jammeh’s most important political constituency. As Commander in Chief, he has kept a close grip on its leadership, promoting some and dismissing others to secure the loyalty of top brass army officers. He was as a result able to weather alleged coup attempts in July 1997, November 1996, January 1995, and November 1994. Many Gambians believe that these alleged coups were staged presumably by Jammeh himself in order to eliminate his perceived enemies and threats to his regime. On a day-to-day basis, the
National Intelligence Agency and the police force guaranteed him overwhelming control over the state apparatus and the country’s political life.29 President Jammeh also maintained overwhelming control of the National Assembly, and the party remained under his control, with no real room for debate within its leadership. This made the political terrain inherently unstable, as rumors of coups and countercoups saturated the political landscape, which made Jammeh extremely paranoid.
Another alleged planned coup was foiled in January 2000, which resulted in shootings in the capital, Banjul, and the death of one alleged ringleader. After the alleged attempted coup, the Jammeh regime took a particularly dramatic authoritarian character. In April 2000, security forces opened fire on a student demonstration, killing fourteen people. The students were protesting the slowness of the authorities in bringing to trial an unidentified security officer for the alleged rape of a schoolgirl and in prosecuting firemen accused of torturing to death a student in Brikama.30
In late 2000, the Indemnity Act was passed by the National Assembly, allowing the President to grant amnesty to any member of the security forces accused of misconduct
during a riot or a state of public emergency. The law was backdated to cover the April 2000 student killings.31
Two months later, the United Democratic Party opposition leader, Darboe, together with twenty-four other party members, was charged with murder after clashes between
regime supporters and a United Democratic Party delegation resulted in the death of a government supporter. To many observers, the move was seen as an attempt by
President Jammeh to prevent Darboe from standing in the 2001 presidential election.32
The 2001 Presidential Elections
On July 22, 2001, the Commonwealth forced President Jammeh to lift Decree 89’s ban on parties in advance of the presidential balloting set for that October. Under this
measure, the three major political parties dating from before the coup had been barred from political activity for periods ranging from five to twenty years. The three were the People’s Progressive Party of former President Jawara, Sheriff Mustapha Dibba’s National Convention Party, and Assan Musa Camara’s Gambia People’s Party. The
death of Decree 89 elicited reactions ranging from jubilation to condemnation. It also created expectations that a coalition of opposition political parties could form to
defeat Jammeh. These hopes were not realized. For a variety of reasons that ranged from irreconcilable ideological differences to personal feuds and ambitions, the opposition leaders failed to rally their several parties around the larger goal of defeating Jammeh. In the end, there were five presidential candidates, including the incumbent.
Ousainou Darboe carried the banner for the so-called limited coalition formed by the United Democratic Party, the People’s Progressive Party, and the Gambia Peoples
Party, while Sheriff Dibba led the National Convention Party. Hamat Bah ran on a National Redemption Party ticket, and Sidia Jatta stood for People’s Democratic
Organization for Independence and Socialism.
Already enjoying advantages accruing from both personal and state-owned resources, Jammeh ran a vigorous campaign based on his seven-year record of promoting
“development” and building new infrastructure. As in 1996, he again dismissed Darboe, the limited coalition’s presidential candidate, as a sinister front for the deposed
People’s Progressive Party Government, which Jammeh charged was bent on returning ex-President Jawara to power. Darboe countered with charges of his own, claiming that under Jammeh, the country had suffered increases in corruption, murder, and poverty and that public accountability and transparency had declined. Yet the limited coalition had trouble outlining concrete measures to remedy these ills.
Among the major preelection developments was the reinstatement of Gabriel Roberts as head of the Independent Electoral Commission. After the 1997 National Assembly elections, Jammeh had dismissed Roberts for alleged incompetence. His return, many felt, foreshadowed the unfolding of an elaborate scheme to engineer the 2001 presidential election. On Election Day, Roberts reversed one of his earlier rulings and declared that one had merely to show a voter’s card in order to cast a ballot.
(Roberts had previously ruled that only people whose names appeared on the main voter registers would be allowed to vote.) Roberts’s last-minute self-reversal made it
easy for an estimated forty thousand to seventy-five thousand non-Gambians— including large numbers of Jammeh’s Jola coethnics from the neighboring Senegalese
province of Casamance—to vote in the presidential election. It was alleged by the opposition and reported in the press that the campus of Gambia College alone harbored some thirty thousand Senegalese Jolas, all of whom were primed to vote in different parts of the country. While the exact number of non-Gambian voters is difficult
to verify, Senegalese police did confiscate Gambian voter’s cards from several Jolas who were crossing from the Gambia back into Casamance Province. President Jammeh beat his main challenger, Darboe, by a convincing, albeit reduced, margin. He polled 52.9 percent of ballots cast, giving him enough to avoid a run-off, while Darboe polled 32.6 percent. Underlining President Jammeh’s win, two of the five presidential candidates, Sheriff Dibba and Sidia Jatta, failed to win on their home turf. The other presidential candidate, Hamat Bah, captured just one district and 7.8 percent of the poll.33 Campaign and party structures had earlier given off a whiff of doom from the start.
Even in areas where Jammeh was not expected to do well because of dissatisfaction over skyrocketing food prices, youth unemployment, and his government’s poor handling
of a bumper groundnut harvest, he enjoyed a commanding edge. It was not long, however, before evidence of serious vote fraud and the Independent Electoral Commission’s complicity therein surfaced to taint, yet again, Jammeh’s victory.
Less than a week after conceding defeat, Darboe denounced Roberts and the Independent Electoral Commission for their “inept and corrupt” handling of voter registration and for an election process in which non-Gambians voted. As proof, Darboe presented to the press a Senegalese who possessed both a Senegalese citizen’s identity card and a Gambian voter’s card. Meanwhile, the Independent Electoral Commission’s own published results showed that 7,877 ballots were cast in Niani constituency-an extraordinary turnout considering that Niani has only 7,464 registered voters.
Similarly, former National Assembly minority leader Kemeseng Jammeh (no relation to the President) pointed out the dramatic increases in vote counts from such
locales as Karantaba, where just 459 people voted in 1996 as compared to 1,331 in 2001, and Soma, which in 1996 had two polling places and 1,408 votes but in 2001
tallied 3,254 votes at four polling places. What these strange figures reveal, charged Darboe, is the Independent Electoral Commission’s involvement in “extra-registration”
of non-Gambians who were then sent to various constituencies to vote.34
Perhaps the most significant event associated with the election was not its outcome but rather the lifting of Decree 89. The end of this blatantly “illiberal” measure represented
clear if tentative progress toward a restoration of democratic processes. In 1996, the opposition had been forced to labor under Decree 89’s restrictions on parties
and had had barely three weeks in which to campaign for the September 26 election that year. In 2001, by contrast, the opposition had almost three months to campaign
and enjoyed greater access than before to state-owned media outlets. Notwithstanding, Jammeh controlled the process, just as he had done in 1996.
Post-2001 Presidential Elections
The immediate post-2001 election period was characterized by deepening authoritarianism. President Jammeh resorted to force and intimidation to silence his critics. Citing concerns about alleged lack of “professionalism,” he dismissed civil servants deemed unsympathetic to his reelection bid or his policies. In doing so, he was returning to one of his favorite tactics for keeping himself in power. Jammeh also amended the constitution to do away with a second-round run-off option in response to his reduced margin of victory over Darboe in 2001.
It was passage of the Media Bill by a Construction Party–led majority in the National Assembly in May 2002, however, that exposed further the deep authoritarian
character of the regime.35 The Media Bill gave the regime and its National Intelligence Agency unchecked powers to visit terror on journalists and all those who oppose, or are perceived to oppose, the president and his policies. Ousman Sillah, a veteran human rights attorney, was shot in December 2003 and left for dead but survived his wounds and now lives in exile in the United States. Deyda Hydara, a newspaper editor, was not so lucky. He was shot dead on December 16, 2004, while two women coworkers sustained life-threatening injuries. Public domestic and international indignation was intense. As a result, Gambian journalists staged a peaceful demonstration on behalf of their fallen colleague.
Concerned about growing repression and Jammeh’s amendment of the constitution to a first-past-the-post electoral system, five major political parties, on January 17,
2005, signed a memorandum of understanding to establish the National Alliance for Democracy and Development (henceforth the Alliance for Democracy).36 The Alliance for Democracy broke up a year later, however, when Darboe, an executive member, resigned, alleging “insincerity” within its ranks.37 Halifa Sallah, the Alliance
for Democracy coordinator, was subsequently chosen as presidential candidate. Amid this political crisis, an alleged foiled coup on March 20, 2006, and its bloody aftermath
gripped the country.38
The alleged foiled coup shook the country and Jammeh’s confidence to the core. Spearheaded by the brass of the Gambia National Army’s (renamed the Gambia Armed Forces), the alleged foiled coup was the culmination of the Gambia’s deepening political, economic, and social crises under President Yahya Jammeh. It exposed the internal cleavages within the army as well as President Jammeh’s dwindling support within it. The coup revealed yet another crisis, however. This time, it was a crisis of confidence in the political process and disappointment over the splintering of the Alliance for Democracy.
To the military brass and their civilian co-conspirators, the break-up of the five-party political alliance ended what little hope there was to dislodge Jammeh in the forthcoming October 2006 presidential elections.39 The wave of arrests following the alleged foiled coup has since subsided but without lingering allegations of “disappearances” and killings of key coup leaders, their civilian co-conspirators, and
several top security officers. Daba Marena, then head of the National Intelligence Agency, has allegedly been killed. Other alleged coup plotters were said to have been brutally tortured to extract confessions, which they read on state-controlled radio and television. They have all been charged with treason and await trial amid personal insecurity, which has enveloped the country. President Jammeh continues
to use state-sponsored violence, press intimidation, and killings to maintain power, as he has over the years.
On June 2, 2006, the Independent Electoral Commission’s chairman, Ndondey Njie, moved the presidential elections from its previously anticipated October 18 date to September 22, 2006, instead. He justified the new September date change to the fact that, that year, the Muslim month of Ramadan was in October. The “snap”
presidential election certainly aided the incumbent president, because the financially strapped opposition parties not only lagged behind in their election preparations but also had little time to launch effective campaigns. President Jammeh also benefited politically from the June’s 2006 government-sponsored International Roots Festival, closely followed by the July 1–2 African Union Summit in Banjul and the July 22 celebrations of the 1994 coup, now dubbed a “revolution.” These events clearly boosted President Jammeh’s 2006 reelection bid and tilted an already uneven playing field further in his favor.
The September 2006 “Snap” Election
Predictably, on Friday, September 22, 2006, President Jammeh’s ruling Construction Party handily defeated presidential contenders, Ousainou Darboe of the United
Democratic Party and Halifa Sallah of the Alliance for Democracy. Voter turnout was estimated at 59 percent, considerably lower than the 89.71 percent in the 2001
presidential election. The low voter turnout was due primarily to voter apathy and very probably anger over opposition party disarray and the subsequent Alliance for
Democracy break-up.
Despite instances of documented electoral irregularities, which included crossborder voting by President Jammeh’s coethnic Jolas from neighboring Casamance, as was the case in 2001’s presidential polling, it appears Jammeh would have, nonetheless, won the presidential vote. Opposition party discord and the consequent
disintegration of the five-party alliance aided Jammeh’s victory considerably. It seems probable that even with a higher voter turnout, candidate Jammeh would have
still triumphed, perhaps with a larger margin. Clearly, disunity within the opposition eroded both its popularity and credibility and irreversibly changed the dynamics of the election in Jammeh’s favor.
In spite of President Jammeh’s “victory,” the 2006 presidential election has not appreciably moved the Gambia any closer to a more democratic political culture. The
election resulted instead in the consolidation of authoritarian rule under Jammeh. One of the strongest measures of burgeoning democracies is the principle of leadership
“alternation,” that is, the likelihood of opposition parties to replace the incumbent, as was the case in Senegal and Ghana in 2000 and 1996, respectively. This scenario is
unlikely in the Gambia. Therefore, the general sentiment since 1996 is that Jammeh will never be defeated through the ballot box. It will take the very process that ushered
him into power—a coup, and a bloody one at that—to remove him from power. Thus, endemic instability will likely become the Gambia’s political future under Jammeh for
the foreseeable future. The evidence provided is consistent with McGowan’s analyses and predictions.
The likelihood of this outcome, which grows by the day, is sure to breed more instability and poverty. Jammeh can, however, avert this bleak but likely outcome if he uses his limited “mandate” and “victory” to widen political participation, undertake genuine reconciliation, root out corruption, investigate mounting deaths, protect press freedoms, and put the economy on a course to mend itself. This is, however, unlikely, as President Jammeh’s postvictory speeches have already promised continued
repression of the press, opposition, and dissidents. These assessments lead me to conclude that The Gambia is not undergoing, nor is she any closer to, a democratic “transition” but a transition reversal, or detransitioning. This is because while elections are held every five years, the political outcome remains the same, without appreciable
improvement, and indeed with the deterioration of the political environment.
This pessimistic assessment is consistent with not only McGowan’s thesis but also the general conclusion reached by other scholars. Michael Bratton and Nicolas van de Walle argue that the future course of regime transitions are highly uncertain and that partial “liberalization” of authoritarian regimes such as Jammeh’s does not amount to a transition to democracy.40 Samuel Decalo also contends that the “democratic advances” in Africa, though welcome, are, however, likely to end up in some countries as only cosmetic or temporary.41
Similarly, Rene Lemarchand contends that the evidence on political liberalization notwithstanding, there are equally compelling reasons to fear that the movement toward democracy may contain within itself seeds of its own undoing.42 Julius Ihonvbere and Julius Nyang’oro arrived at similar conclusions.43 Even if these assessments of Africa’s “transitions” are apparently harsh, they are not misplaced. In The Gambia’s case, there is deep-seated psychic discomfort and ambivalence surrounding Jammeh’s “democratic victory.” The commentary below captures this state of being cogently: At the heart of Jammeh’s 12-year presidency, we see a dangerous phenomenon: the centralization of power and its tendency to negate the trappings of democratic impulse and to reduce an entire population to brutish pliancy. Killings and disappearances have become commonplace. The rules of law and press freedom exist merely on the fringes of our leaders’ political imagination. That’s why it is difficult to make sense of Jammeh’s victory, however democratic it is. Thus, Jammeh’s victory should be seen for what it is—
calamitous, because it continues further dismantling of the ramparts of our national cohesion; and unhelpful, because it is yet another shovelful of earth to the graveyard of political rectitude.44
Richard Joseph has appropriately termed what little “liberalization” there is in the Gambia a “virtual democracy,”45 similar to Robert Fatton’s “democratic façade,” a term he used to describe democracy in Senegal from 1975–85.46 More recently, though, Fatton has argued that rulers like Jammeh have, in fact, used constitutions, generally, and elections, specifically, as a pretext to furthering their individual or group interests.
In doing so, rulers like Jammeh, in protection of parochial interests have attempted to block democratic openings and committed themselves to very limited liberalization.47
This then is the net effect of twelve years of quasimilitary political “liberalization” in The Gambia, and the story provides ample support for McGowan’s peripherality, poor
leadership, poverty, and instability thesis.
President Jammeh’s autocratic rule has consequently led to the near collapse of The Gambia’s economy. This is not an overstatement, as a Foreign Policy and Institute for Peace study, the “Failed State Index,” ranked the Gambia at 60th position on a list of countries on the brink of political and economic collapse.48 This was made evident by the alleged foiled coup of March 2006.
Economic Performance under President Jammeh
Postcoup economic activity contracted considerably primarily because of sanctions and travel advisories imposed on the Gambia by the U.K. and Scandinavian
governments. It is estimated that the Gambia lost approximately $100 million as a result of these sanctions. While the economy allegedly grew at about 5 percent, following the 2001 presidential elections, an IMF report singled out the Construction Party government for criticism in overstating its “good” economic performancerecord. Most damaging to the regime’s credibility was that the data on which this assessment was made were, in fact, “cooked.”49
A mounting external debt of approximately $600 million forced the Construction Party government to swallow the bitter pill of structural adjustment, with mixed results. While the macroeconomic environment remained stable, the regime’s much touted “Vision 2020,” a neoliberal strategy for economic development, remains overly ambitious, and its rhetoric concealed years of poor economic performance. In fact, the IMF did not mince its words in its 2004 evaluation when it reported that “the Gambian economy was substantially worse off than previously reported and that its national strategy to reduce poverty would be set back for decades to come.”50
The regime likes to answer its critics, however, by pointing to the numerous schools, hospitals, clinics, and roads that it has built since coming to power in 1994. It is true that both the Ruling Council and Construction Party Governments refurbished the national airport and government-owned radio station, in addition to building the country’s first university and only television station. These achievements must be qualified, however, because despite these improvements, the economy remains sluggish and the infrastructure is deteriorating at a faster pace than it is being built or maintained.
While several high schools and hospitals had been constructed under Jammeh’s watch, they remain woefully understaffed and underfunded. And even if access to education and medical care may have improved some, critics maintain that the quality of these services may have deteriorated sharply. Despite “improved” infrastructure, more Gambians live in abject poverty than before, with a per capita GDP estimated at about US$340, alongside a wealthy emergent ex-military commercial and bureaucratic class.
Under Jammeh’s tenure, the economy has performed poorly in ensuring expansion of The Gambia’s GNP, greater levels of foreign and/or domestic investment, and
higher levels of exports. The tendency to divert scarce national resources to expand military establishments, construct “feel-good” infrastructure, and most importantly,
graft constitute at least three reasons for the poor economic performance of the Gambian economy under President Jammeh. Today, 69 percent of Gambians live in abject poverty.
Intense IMF and World Bank pressure to curb mounting corruption has once more forced Jammeh to put in place “Operation no Compromise.” At best, the program is
a lackluster effort to salvage an already tainted image of Jammeh himself and his immediate ex-military and business partners. At worst, it is a cruel hoax that in the end does not deliver but scapegoats Jammeh’s political enemies. The Paul Commission, named after the presiding judge investigating cases of corruption among top civil servants, is seen generally as corrupt, and he presides over a commission that is deemed to lack substance and seriousness. In part, this is because Jammeh and his vice president, Isatou Njie-Saidy, have not seen it fit to appear before the commission. Yet Jammeh is one of the richest heads of state in West Africa and has vowed that “his great-great grandchildren will never know what poverty is.” This he is able to guarantee on a salary of less than $20,000 per annum.51
Increasingly, many Gambians have expressed, with growing boldness, a deep sense of remorse over the country’s economy and decay of its physical infrastructure. They
lament the decline in moral standards seen in rising greed and corruption, which the Jammeh regime(s) seems to have exacerbated. It is widely accepted now that President
Jammeh and his cohort seized power in 1994 not to improve the lives of ordinary Gambians, as they had promised, but to line their pockets.
Perhaps the most persistent myth often promoted by the military and soldier turned-civilian-president Jammeh is that they are better qualified than civilians to promote economic development and to use modern technology for the overall
modernization of the national economy. This may very well be a throwback to the theories of “modernization and political development” of the 1960s, which have, paradoxically, resurfaced alongside neoliberal economic policies and the “Washington consensus.” Clearly, the primary problem with this view is that an ability to use technology for destructive purposes does not automatically translate into an ability to use technology to promote economic development.52 How has President Jammeh managed to remain in power?
In a nutshell, he has controlled and used the state security apparatus to maintain a repressive environment in which dissidents and journalists critical of his rule are routinely jailed, tortured, and sometimes killed. However, there are clear signals for change in the junta’s relationship with the IMF, regional leaders, and the United States.
Rather than business as usual with President Jammeh, pressure is mounting for change in the sphere of human rights. A case in point was when U.S. Congressman Adam B. Schiff on June 15, 2006, expressed grave concern over the 2004 murder of newspaper editor Deyda Hydara and the slow and unproductive results in the government-led
investigation. Speaking at the U.S. House of Representatives, he called for an end to “impunity” for “predators of press freedom.” Schiff strongly urged The Gambian government to appoint an independent board of inquiry to investigate the murder of Hydara. In response to increased human rights violations in The Gambia, the U.S. government on June 19, 2006, suspended the Gambia from its list of eligible countries to receive economic assistance from its Millennium Challenge Account (MCA).53 The
reasons were as expected: poor and deteriorating human rights, economic mismanagement, and hostility toward journalists.
Regionally, President Jammeh is also under pressure from both Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal to grant immediate amnesty to alleged March 21 coupists. Similarly, the World Bank and the IMF are exerting considerable pressure on President Jammeh to reform the economy and improve human rights. To boot, both financial institutions have withheld loans at one time or another pending registered macroeconomic progress. Contrary to expectations, it is the IMF and the World Bank that have been most instrumental in nudging President Jammeh to undertake needed political and economic reforms and end autocratic rule. The Commonwealth has been just as vocal and critical of Jammeh.
The Gambia’s economic situation lends credence to McGowan’s thesis regarding the linkage between a rent-seeking state and its use by an autocratic military leadership,
economic decline, poverty, and political instability.
Theoretical Implications of McGowan’s
Political Economy Approach
This article was largely an exploratory rather than a full-fledged assessment of McGowan’s neo-Marxist/liberal political economy approach or validation of its efficacy
in the study of instability, coups, poor leadership, and underdevelopment in West Africa. A more structured and nuanced study is required for this purpose. What this study on the Gambia suggests, however, is that both Marxist/neo-Marxist and liberal non-Marxist political economy approaches are theoretically robust to generate
comprehensive explanations and prediction of coups and instability in West Africa. In this regard, McGowan’s pioneering work, which he began in the early 1980s, is a substantive theoretical improvement over modernization and political development theories.
By incorporating elements of Wallerstein’s “world-systems” model, McGowan was able to modify Jackman’s model on coups d’état and, in doing so, helped pioneer this neo-Marxist/liberal political economy approach.54 Likewise, Luckham and Hutchful as well as Wolpin and First have each contributed immensely to the use of Marxist and/or
neo-Marxist political economy approaches to analyze civil–military relations in Africa.55 McGowan pushes the analyses a little further by going beyond coups to use
a “rational choice” model to explain the role of poor leadership. This contrasts sharply with Decalo’s “idiosyncratic” emphasis on coups as well as Prices’ “reference group” model deriving from modernization and political development theories.
In fact, Feaver and Burke have each identified what they termed the “civil–military problematique” in the works of Huntington and Janowitz as they relate to the study of U.S. civil–military relations and the Third World, by implication.56 They each critique and identify the limited utility of modernization and political development
theories and have, therefore, called for a paradigm shift. This is primarily because these theories were hatched at a particular historical period—the Cold War—and served U.S. hegemonic interests. The need for a paradigm change is made even more necessary because of shifts from a predominantly state-based system of “international”
politics to one that is “global,” with many important actors of which the state is but one. Also, the U.S.-led “war on terror” and a newly emerging civil–military landscape in the West and the Third World would require fresh approaches to configure these changes.
From McGowan’s work, one gleans a commitment to “reform” of the international trade regime in primary products to avert underdevelopment. The controversy over
agricultural subsidies in the Doha Round of world trade talks focused on the need for industrialized countries to remove barriers to poor countries’ exports and end subsidies to farmers in the industrialized economies.57 This has remained elusive. Cotton subsidies in the United States, for instance, far exceed the GDP of Burkina Faso, a
poor cotton producer in West Africa. Because of these subsidies, overproduction results in lower prices to poor farmers. Although World Trade Organization rules prohibit
subsidies that distort trade, rich countries have yet to eliminate them.58 This structural relationship further deepens dependence and peripherality of West Africa in the global capitalist economy. Consistent with the political economy approach, McGowan views these inequities as indirect yet likely to fuel oppositional political violence in the West Africa subregion the Gambia, specifically.
From McGowan’s neo-Marxist/liberal political economy model, one can similarly deduce informed skepticism of the IMF and the neoliberal economic policy framework it champions. McGowan advocates instead tolerance for an alternative “neomercantilist” policy framework. IMF policies generally minimize the role of government while emphasizing privatization (selling of government enterprises to the private sector) and eliminating trade barriers and impediments to the free flow of capital. In practice, the World Trade Organization, G-7, World Bank, and IMF put
little emphasis on “equity” and advocate trickle-down economics.59 Evidence has indicated that with a few exceptions, countries that followed structural adjustment
policies did not achieve high rates of growth.60 This finding has important implications for future economic development, coups d’état, and political instability of The
Gambia and West Africa. Unless these issues of equity and social justice are addressed, the global trading and financial systems will continue to pit the interests of the world’s rich against those of the poor.61
Furthermore, McGowan’s work helps us to better appreciate the indirect linkages of the global trade and financial regimes to potential coups d’état, instability, oppositional political violence, authoritarianism, and war in West Africa and elsewhere.
Therefore, political economy and possibly “critical theory” approaches may very well provide scholars and policy makers tools to better address root causes of coups,
instability, and “terrorism,” all by-products of underdevelopment in an age of “globalization.”
This is refreshing, even bold, at a time when neoliberalism has taken center stage in economic and political development discourse.
Similarly, rational choice theory provides theoretically based explanations as to why leaders such as Jammeh behave the way they do, which supports what Bayart termed “politics of the belly,” in which short-term political survival and economic interests of those in power trump the long-term goals of democratization, political stability, economic growth, and prosperity.62
There are several theoretical and epistemological concerns over McGowan’s conflation of neo-Marxist and liberal political economy expectations and policy prescriptions.
The concern hinges on the incompatibility of the two. Neo-Marxist political economy approaches proceed generally from a social class–based unit of analysis, while rational choice theory is “individual” based. This would have been insignificant at independence in the 1960s, when social classes were less crystallized as they are in the first decade of twenty-first century Africa. Thus, while McGowan’s explanations are powerful, he failed to push the neo-Marxist model far enough to consider critically the “social class” and “social change” implications that it logically suggests.
That is to say, the neoliberal “reformist” agenda proposed by rational choice theory is inconsistent with the policy prescription proposed by the neo-Marxist approach.
In fact, McGowan, in spite of his skepticism, tends to implicitly endorse neoliberalism and the Washington consensus framework. This may account for his overt pessimism, perhaps resignation, that “peripherality and poor leadership” are a permanent and irreversible curse on states in West Africa. This approximates “economic determinism” and leaves little or no room for agency or leadership of a different kind. A longer view of history may suggest otherwise, given that these countries, except Ghana, have not been independent for more than fifty years. Additionally, when compared to the turbulent 1960s and the “lost decade” of the 1980s,West Africa’s trajectory appears brighter. Clearly, Ghana, Senegal, Mali, and other countries in the subregion also go against the grain of his thesis. Thus, under new and visionary leadership, the future of West Africa and the Gambia holds out a relatively brighter
promise than the one McGowan predicts.
Conclusion
The period from 1994 to 2006 is significant in the Gambia’s postcolonial political history. Its significance lies in the emergence of a junior officer class, which disingenuously appropriated the language of the IMF and World Bank to promise Gambians “real democracy,” “human rights,” “probity,” “accountability,” and “transparency” in government. In the course of twelve years and some months later, many Gambians were and continue to be brutally tortured and killed. Recrimination and disappointment have long replaced the euphoria and high expectations that once
greeted the coup and young “soldiers with a difference.”
Yet McGowan is right that the political and economic trajectory for the Gambia under President Jammeh remains bleak. This is so even with the alleged discovery
of oil in the country. Unfortunately, this valuable resource is likely to be a curse rather than a blessing unless a new visionary leadership is in power. Consequently, new leadership committed to fundamental change is a prerequisite for stability in The Gambia and West Africa, generally.
Finally, McGowan’s neo-Marxist/liberal political economy approach has once more given impetus to a putatively discredited theoretical framework following the end of the Cold War. The theoretical debates that his study has helped engender on poverty, instability and conflict in the periphery of the world economy is likely to rejuvenate civil–military scholarship and provide an antidote to neoliberalism. What is needed now is articulation of alternative policy proposals consistent with the neo-Marxist model.
Notes
1. Patrick J. McGowan, “Coups and Conflict in West Africa, 1955–2004, Part II, Empirical Findings,”
Armed Forces & Society 32 (January 2006): 1; McGowan, “Coups and Conflicts in West Africa,
1955–2004, Part I, Theoretical Perspectives,”
2. Samuel Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century, (Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press), 262.
3. Abdoulaye Saine, “The Coup d’État in the Gambia, 1994: The End of the First Republic,” Armed
Forces & Society 23 (Fall 1996); John A. Wiseman and Elizabeth Vidler, “The July 1994 Coup d’État in
the Gambia: The End of an Era? The Round Table 333 (1995): 53–63; Modou Loum, “Bad Governance
and Democratic Failure: A Look at Gambia’s 1994 Coup,” Civil Wars 1 (2002): 145–74.
4. McGowan, “Coups and Conflict in West Africa,” 250.
5. See the comprehensive and seminal work by Robin Luckham, “The Military, Militarization and
Democratization in Africa: A Survey of Literature and Issues,” African Studies Review 37 (September
1994): 13–75.
6. Claude E. Welch Jr., “Changing Civil–Military Relations,” in Global Transformations and the
Third World, ed. Robert O. Slater, Barry Shultz, and Steven Dorr (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner
Publishers, 1993), 71.
7. See Boubacar S. N’Diaye, “The Military in the Politics of West Africa,” Journal of Political and
Military Sociology 28 (Winter 2000): 187.
8. Mathurin C. Houngnikpo, “The Military and Democratization in Africa,” Journal of Political and
Military Sociology 28 (Winter 2000), 215.
9. Earl Conteh-Morgan, “The Military and Democratization in West Africa,” Journal of Political and
Military Sociology 28 (Winter 2000), 341–55.
10. Sulayman S. Nyang, “Politics in Post-Independence Gambia,” A Current Bibliography on African
Affairs 8 (1975): 113–26; Tijan Sallah, “Economic and Politics in the Gambia” Journal of Modern African
Studies 28 (1990): 621–48; Omar A. Touray, The Gambia and The World: A History of the Foreign Policy
of Africa’s Smallest State, 1965–1995 (Hamburg: Institute of African Affairs, 2000).
11. Abdoulaye Saine, “The Military and Foreign Policy,” in Small States in World Politics: Explaining
Foreign Policy Behavior, ed. Jeanne A. K. Hey (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2003), 120.
12. Carlene J. Edie, “Democracy in the Gambia: Past, Present and Prospects,” African Development
25 (2000): 168; Ebrima Sall and Halifa Sallah, “The Military and the Crisis of Governance: The Gambian
Case” (paper presented at the eighth general assembly of CODESRIA, Dakar, Senegal, July 1995);
Ebenezer Obadare, “The Military and Democracy in the Gambia,” in Governance and Democratization
in West Africa, ed. Dele Olowu, Adebayo Williams, and Kayode Soremekun (Dakar, Senegal:
CODESRIA), 349.
13. Arnold Hughes, “The Attempted Gambia Coup d’État of 27–30 July, 1981,” in The Gambia:
Studies in Society and Politics, ed. Arnold Hughes, Birmingham University African Studies Series, no. 3
(Birmingham, UK: University of Birmingham, 1991), 92-106.
14. Hughes, “The Attempted Gambia Coup d’etat of 27–30 July, 1981,” 95; Sulayman S. Nyang,
“After the Rebellion,” Africa Report (1981): 47–51.
15. “The Collapse of the Senegambian Confederation,” Journal of Commonwealth and
Comparative Politics 30 (1992): 200–22.
16. Ousman Manjang, “Marriage of Confusion-2,” West Africa (November 10, 1986): 2358–60.
17. Wiseman and Vidler, “The July 1994 Coup d’État in the Gambia,” 55.
18. Obadare, “The Military and Democracy in the Gambia,” 346.
19. Saine, “The Coup d’État in the Gambia, 1994,” 101.
20. See Jeffrey Herbst, “Economic Incentives, Natural Resources and Conflict in Africa,” Journal of
African Economics 9 (2000): 286; Baffour Ageyman-Duah, “Military Coups, Regime Change, and
Interstate Conflicts in West Africa,” Armed Forces & Society 16 (Summer 1990): 547–70.
21. Peter J. Schraeder, African Politics and Society: A Mosaic in Transformation (New York: Thomson
& Wadsworth, 2004), 231; Abdoulaye Saine, “The Soldier-Turned-Presidential Candidate: A Comparison
of Flawed Democratic Transitions in Ghana and Gambia,” Journal of Political and Military Sociology 28,
2 (Winter 2000), 191–209.
22. Schraeder, African Politics and Society, 231.
23. See Abdoulaye Saine, “The 1996/1997 Presidential and National Assembly Elections in the
Gambia,” Electoral Studies 4 (December 1997): 555. 24. See Ebrima Ceesay, The Military and
“Democratisation” in the Gambia: 1994–2003 (Toronto, ON: Trafford, 2006), 38.
25. Obadare, “The Military and Democracy in the Gambia,” 351.
26. Abdoulaye Saine, “The Military’s Managed ‘Transition’ to ‘Civilian’ Rule in the Gambia,” Journal
of Political and Military Sociology 26 (1998): 157–68.
27. See Arnold Hughes, “Democratisation under the Military in the Gambia: 1994–2000,”
Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 38 (November 2000): 35–32.
28. For a detailed discussion, see Boubacar N’Diaye, Abdoulaye Saine, and Mathurin Houngnikpo,
Not Yet Democracy: West Africa’s Slow Farewell to Authoritarianism (Durham, NC: Carolina Academic
Press), 79–106.
29. Country Profile, The Gambia and Mauritania: Economist Intelligence Unit Country Profile
(London: The Economist, 2001), 11.
30. The Gambia Human Rights Country Report (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of State, 2002), 2.
31. Ibid., 3.
32. Ibid., 4.
33. Abdoulaye Saine, “Post-coup Politics in the Gambia,” Journal of Democracy 13 (October
2002): 169.
34. Ibid., 170.
35. While the Media Commission Bill was eventually done away with in 2004, this did not stop the
junta from its continued abuse of citizens’ rights. Journalists are Jammeh’s main targets and they continue
to be arrested, tortured, and held incommunicado despite laws that prohibit detention without charges
within seventy-two hours. The press corps in the Gambia has seen its numbers dwindle considerably;
many opted instead to leave the country. Once outside of the Gambia, many have launched online newspapers,
Including AllGambian.net, Freedomnewspaper.com, and Thegambiaecho.com, to name a few.
These papers continue to be very critical of the regime resulting in the hacking of Freedomnewspaper.com
by computer experts in the pay of the regime. Many subscribers residing in the Gambia were rounded up
and detained. Those abroad have been blacklisted.
36. At a conference held in Atlanta of all Gambian political parties in 2003, agreement was reached
to commence talks that would lead to the formation of a coalition to contest the 2006 presidential election
as a single force. Save the Gambia Democracy Project (STGDP) organized the meeting to coincide
with the Fourth of July weekend marking the U.S. day of independence. It was clear, however, that personal
ambitions and desires to become the presidential candidate would in the end lead to major future
problems.
37. The reaction over Darboe’s resignation from the National Alliance for Democracy was extremely
critical, and it was voter anger of approximately 280,000 potential supporters who did not vote that helped
President Jammeh’s reelection bid. Others also voted for Jammeh, as the opposition gave them no choice.
38. Many observers doubt that a coup attempt had taken place in Banjul, and speculations focused on
a possible power struggle within President Jammeh’s ruling party ahead of general elections. Jammeh had
turned more and more despotic, thus alienating many of his ruling Alliance for Patriotic Re-orientation
and Construction Party followers. During the past few years, President Jammeh has acted increasingly
paranoid to opponent views, resulting in mass arrests of Gambian opposition members and strong attacks
on the press, including the murder of the editor of The Point. Until now, the army has been seen as faithful
to the dictator, but there are signs of fatigue among military leaders as President Jammeh’s regime
turns more paranoid. See “Coup Claims in Gambia Lead to Wave of Arrests,” Afrol News, March 22, 2006
(www.afrol.com/articles/18521).
39. For a detailed discussion of the 2006 presidential elections, see Abdoulaye Saine, “The 2006
Presidential and National Assembly Elections in the Gambia, Continuity or Change,” African Studies
Review (forthcoming).
40. See Michael Bratton and Nicolas van de Walle, “Popular Protest and Political Reform in Africa,”
Comparative Politics 24, 4 (July 1992), 419–42.
41. Samuel Decalo, “The Process, Prospects, and Constraints of Democratization in Africa,” African
Studies Review 91 (1992), 7–35.
42. Rene Lemarchand, “African Transitions to Democracy: An Interim (and Mostly Pessimistic)
Assessment,” Africa Insight 22 (1992), 178–85.
43. Julius O. Ihonvbere, “On the Threshold of Another False Start: A Critical Evaluation of Prodemocracy
Movements in Africa,” Journal of Asian and African Studies 31, 1/2 (1996), 125–42; Julius
Nyang’Oro, “Critical Notes on Political Liberalization in Africa,” Journal of Asian and African Studies
31, 1/2 (1996), 44–50.
44. Name of author withheld for safety/security reasons.
45. Richard Joseph, “The Reconfiguration of Power in the Twentieth-century Africa,” in State,
Conflict, and Democracy in Africa, ed. Richard Joseph (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1999), 61.
46. Robert Fatton Jr., The Making of a Liberal Democracy: Senegal’s Passive Revolution, 1975–1885
(Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1987).
47. Robert Fatton Jr., Predatory Rule in Africa: State and Civil Society in Africa (Boulder, CO: Lynne
Rienner, 1992).
48. Today, the Gambia is more vulnerable to collapse given the events of March 2006 and increased
junta paranoia. Deterioration in personal safety and growing opposition to Jammeh’s rule would make the
Gambia more vulnerable to collapse. For the 2005 “Failed State Index,” see www.fundforpeace.org.
49. Bakary Dabo, “Living in Crisis,” West Africa (February 13–19, 1995), 217–18.
50. A good and readable summary of The IMF Report, 2004 is provided by Ousman Kargbo, “Report
on The Gambia’s Economy,” The Point (September 2005), at www.thepoint.gm.
51. For a detailed discussion, see Abdoulaye Saine, “The Gambia’s Changing Political and Economic
Landscape: A Regime Performance Evaluation, 1994–2002,” Africa Insight 33, 3 (September 2003),
57–64.
52. Peter Schraeder, African Politics and Society, 214.
53. AllAfrica.net (July 20, 2006); Thegambiaecho.com (July 21, 2006).
54. See Robert Jackman, “Politicians in Uniform: Military Governments and Social Change in the
Third World,” American Political Science Review 70 (December 1976), 1078–97.
55. Robin Luckham, “Taming the Monster, Democratization and Demilitarization,” in The Military
and Militarism in Africa, eds. Eboe Hutchful and Abdoulaye Bathily (Dakar, Senegal: CODESRIA,
1998), 589–98; Robin Luckham, “Armaments, Underdevelopment and Militarization in Africa,”
Alternatives: A Journal of World Politics 6 (1980), 179–245; Eboe Hutchful, “Militarism and Problems
of Democratic Transition,” in Democracy in Africa: The Hard Road Ahead, ed. Marina Ottaway (Boulder,
CO: Lynne Rienner, 1997), 43–64. See his incisive analyses from a Marxist perspective, “Marx and
Radical Militarism in the Developing Nations,” Armed Forces & Society 4 (Winter 1978), 254–55; Ruth
First, The Barrel of the Gun (Middlesex, UK: Penguin African Library, 1972).
56. Peter D. Feaver, “The Civil–Military Problematique: Huntington, Janowitz, and the Question of
Civilian Control,” Armed Forces & Society 23 (Winter 1996), 149–78; James Burk, “Theories of
Democratic–Military Relations,” Armed Forces & Society 29 (Fall 2002), 24.
57. “Hard Truths, The Doha Trade Round Is Still Alive, but Hardly Healthy,” The Economist
(December 24, 2005), 97–98.
58. Kate Eshelby, “Cotton, the Huge Moral Issue,” New African (January 2006), 26–28.
59. Joseph E. Stiglitz, Making Globalization Work (New York: Norton & Company, 2006), 27.
60. Walden Bello and Shalmali, “Crisis of Credibility, The Declining Power of the International
Monetary Fund,” Multinational Monitor (July/August 2005), 19–22.
61. Jeff Faux, “Without Consent: Global Capital Mobility and Democracy,” Dissent (Winter 2004),
43–50.
62. Jean-Francois Bayart, The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly (New York: Longman, 1993).
Abdoulaye Saine is a professor of African studies and international political economy in the department
of political science at Miami University. He has published widely on civil–military relations, democratic
transitions, and elections in the Gambia and West Africa. Address for correspondence: Abdoulaye Saine,
Department of Political Science, Miami University, Oxford, OH 45056; e-mail: sainea@muohio.edu.
EDITOR'S NOTE: We are grateful to Professor Saine for sending us this article published by a scholarly journal: Armed Forces & Society Vol.34 No. 3April, 2008 pp.450-473. Thank you brother.