Bishop Solomon Tilewa Johnson, as Chairman of the IEC; initiated extensive changes

By D. A. Jawo

We have all been witnesses to the recent elections in the Untied Kingdom, which produced a hung parliament, eventually leading to a coalition government between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. One would wonder whether there were any lessons for Africa in general, and The Gambia in particular, from the way the elections were conducted, the outcome, as well as the very comportment of the voters. Of course, there were quite a lot of lessons to learn from it. We have, for instance, heard the cases of some voters being prevented from casting their ballots when it was time for the polls to close, and instead of allowing all those on the queue to vote, as anyone would have expected, those in charge of the polling stations decided to stop the voting, and as a result, disenfranchised some people. Of course, those affected as well as almost all the parties complained and condemned the action, but there was never any attempt by any of them to use that as an excuse to challenge the outcome of the elections, or cause trouble. It is quite obvious that if such a situation had arisen in any African country, including The Gambia, each of the parties would have been claiming to be the winner and the losers would have used it as an excuse to challenge the results, citing it as being responsible for their defeat. The obvious outcome would have been a lot of mayhem and bloody clashes, with the security forces being used by the regime in power to suppress any opposition protests, and in the process, subject them to untold brutalities. We have seen several examples of such scenarios in many African countries.

IEC Chairman, Carayol

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Another likely outcome of the ‘marriage of convenience’ between the Conservatives and the Social Democrats is a reform of the British electoral system; from the present ‘first past the post’ to something more in tune with reality. In the system of ‘first past the post’, which is also being practiced in The Gambia, a candidate can obtain less than a third of the votes cast in a particular constituency, and still get elected to represent that constituency. Also, a party can obtain a large proportion of the votes cast and still get a disproportionate number of seats in parliament. For instance, while the Liberal Democrats got 23 per cent of the votes in the British elections, they only got less than 10 per cent of the seats in the House of Commons. This, therefore, means that if there was a proportional representation system in place, they could have had many more seats in the Commons. As a result, this system is anything but democratic and fair, and we can, therefore, hope and pray that if ever the ‘Mother of Parliaments’ decides to change the system to something more representative, our own National Assembly would also follow suit and give Gambians a much fairer electoral system. For instance, in The Gambia’s presidential elections of 2006, which was marred by a very poor turn-out, President Yahya Jammeh obtained 264, 404 votes, while his nearest rival, Ousainou Darboe had 104, 803 votes, which represented 26.69 per cent of the total number of votes cast. More than 41 per cent of the registered voters failed to vote, apparently because a majority of them had become disillusioned with the unfair electoral system, and the systemic use of the security forces to harass supporters of the opposition, and decided not to waste their time queuing to vote. In the ensuing National Assembly elections in January 2007, the combined opposition polled about 40 per cent of the popular vote, and yet, they only got four out of the 48 elective seats of the National Assembly, which is less than 10 per cent. Therefore, if there had been proportional representation in place, there would have been many more opposition seats in the National Assembly.

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Former IEC Chairman Bishop Johnson (right)

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Another thing which makes the Gambian electoral system quite archaic is without a doubt the use of marbles. While we can understand the original rationale behind the use of marbles, instead of ballot papers, as the extremely low literacy rate of the electorate, and the fact that voters were not familiar with the electoral process, such a justification no longer holds true. Not only has there been a dramatic increase in the literacy rate, Gambian voters are now quite familiar with the elections process, consequently,  there is no reason for continuing to use an old-fashioned system of voting, much more prone to abuse than systems being used elsewhere. However, it appears that the present system is serving the APRC well, and the regime is very unlikely to ever want to see it changed. Those in power seem to be more concerned about maintaining their advantageous position, than putting in place a fairer electoral system. Of course, the very fact that they changed the constitutional clause, which allowed for a second-round of voting in the presidential elections, was no doubt part of their scheme to cling on to power at whatever cost. Being responsible for the conduct of elections and all other aspects of the electoral system, one would assume that the Independent Electoral Commission would have the power to initiate some of those positive changes. However, knowing what obtains in the country, it is foolhardy for anyone to ever assume that the IEC will have the guts to even contemplate such changes, knowing fully well that the Sheikh Professor would not be amused by it. We can recall what happened to Bishop Solomon Tilewa Johnson, when as Chairman of the IEC; he initiated some extensive changes to the constituency boundaries, in an attempt to bring some form of sanity to it, against the wishes of the Sheikh Professor. He was unceremoniously sacked, in complete contravention of the law, and nothing came out of it. As they say in Wollof; ‘Ku ndobin rey mam’am, su gisseh lu nyul dafa daw’ (literally meaning that anyone would avoid the likes of anything that harmed his/her predecessor). We all know that the present IEC Chairman Alhagi Mustapha Carayol, was Bishop Johnson’s deputy, and as such, he would do anything to avoid a similar fate befalling him, even if it means ignoring some of the very basic things that the IEC should be empowered to do; such as the unreasonable disparity in constituency sizes, among other ignoble and gaping inefficiencies in The Gambia’s electoral system.