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  |Unique Circumstances of a Maiden Post Dictatorship Presidential Election, the Runners and Its Likely Outcome|   By Pa Louis Sambou    A fter the fall of a ‘strong man’ in former President Jammeh who hamstrung far much more than a fair share of daily life of Gambians including those of public institutions, most Gambians were relieved and thought: ‘never again’. Well, we were wrong. After twenty-two years, public institutions became so accustomed to being kept ‘in line’ through diktat ‘from the top’ rather than through due process, post Jammeh, contrary to public expectation, some of these institutions and figureheads within them increasingly display a worrying lack of regard to the courts. Not even according the judiciary the courtesy of deference. In the build-up to, and over the course of the coming Presidential elections, this lamentable phenomenon has manifested itself in more ways than most would have liked vis-à-vis the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) and its response to

      From Left: Honourable Sallah and Essa Faal |  The Robust Fiery Political Exchange Which Simmered Down on a Cool Friendly Closing Note  |    By Pa Louis Sambou   T here is little doubt that the collapse of the former regime’s  vote in 2016 and the subsequent rupture of what was the coalition, precipitated a shift in the techtonic plates of The Gambia’s political landscape in ways never seen before. By all accounts, such state of affairs makes it much more difficult to say with any respectable degree of certainty, how the marbles will land come election day. Naturally, one would expect such uncertainty to generate a spirit of collaboration among opposition parties and candidates, something which has been and perhaps still is a mainstream view within certain quarters. However, as 4 th December draws closer, this logic is increasingly melting out into a myth, albeit still too blissful to let go of by some. In reality, not only is there reluctance for any collaboration among the oppos

  |The Tricky Business of Relying on Military Junta Decrees to Organise Democratic Elections in a Post Dictatorship Era| B y Pa Louis Sambou   F or anyone who’s had to await decision on something which meant a lot to them and into which they invested so much: whether the outcome of a job application, publication of exam results or perhaps that maiden travel visa, the agony endured by the long list of President aspirants on Saturday 6 th  November 2021 must have felt familiar. For candidates to whom unfulfilled notices of outstanding information were issued upon presenting themselves for nomination at the Independent Electoral Commission (the IEC), it is fair to say that their disqualifications would have already been obvious to them once nominations closed on 5 th  November. So one could, with a degree of certainty say that the latter category of aspirants were probably not sat in front of the television screen waiting in anguish. For all others, the question as to whether the IEC’s an

|We should be easing, not unduly heightening pre-election tension|   By Pa Louis Sambou    A s the Presidential election nears, section 62 of the Constitution appears to be attracting unprecedented level of interest, the likes of which we’ve never seen in any previous election in the lifetime of the Constitution. This provision, which details the qualification and disqualification rules as regards candidates for presidential elections appears to occupy an unusual mainstream position in political discourse among the electorate, more than even the candidates’ manifestos. For such a dull subject, one wonders whether the high interest it arouses over and beyond other issues points to the underwhelming nature of what it is that the candidates have got to offer or, whether such is attributed to sinister issues which are so far, much less obvious to pinpoint than the aforementioned. If the latter turns out to be the driver of such unusual public interest in section 62, then such’ll be an indi

|A Classic Example of Mercenary Diplomacy and How Not to Conduct International Relations|   By Pa Louis Sambou    W ith Presidential elections barely two months away, visa restriction measures imposed against The Gambia, for the government’s failure to cooperate with the EU’s deportation regime as was confirmed in a recent  press statement by the European Commission  could not have come at a more critical time. For the special interest opposition for whom accusing the government of facilitating deportations served a rewarding political weapon of choice, this development slams shut such an otherwise useful misinformation gateway. To do justice to other opponents of this government whose opposition is premised on principled disagreement, it is fair to qualify what I meant by ‘special interest opposition’ being those former political associates of the President whom are in opposition today against their will, not because of any principled conviction but rather, because the President dismi

  By Pa Louis Sambou    C ontinuous politicking is a permanent fixture in any democracy. Without such, there will be no democratic counterbalance to the incumbent, nor any mechanism through which the government of the day could be challenged and held accountable as is required under any respectable multi-party democratic framework. Effectively, what the President laments in his recent  State House diatribe  as ‘endless politicking’ is, a feature which is by all accounts a vitally essential pillar of Gambian multi-party democracy. The opposite is, the antithesis of democratic existence whose prevalence it seems the President aspires to doggedly pursue at some time in the very near future, never-mind the cringeworthy ‘clarifications’ and ‘re-clarifications’ (or perhaps Trump like alternative facts) advanced by his misplaced-loyalty-powered ‘politburo’. I note that most dismiss these as peak tosh by cranks, which characterisation is perhaps reaffirmed by the comical optics the affair proj