OP

By Pa Louis Sambou  I n an election year (2021) in The Gambia, Electoral Commission’s first official move is to  announce the shredding of voter registration timetable  dramatically coinciding with the President’s first official appointment of the year: to unlawfully parachute a party militant, Mr Remi Joiner to the vacant post of Vice Chairman of the Electoral Commission. Never-mind the weakness of the perpetuated allegations surrounding the capacity and constitutional legitimacy of the Commission’s Chairman, these two seriously ill-advised acts of self-harm by the two aforementioned entities in question, whether occurring independently of their own accord or as part of a coordinated conspiracy, they’re nevertheless daring enough to legitimately put all stakeholders of the electoral process on edge. I’m personally not convinced by the claims of a conspiracy but, the concerns expressed in reaction to the above are absolutely valid and legitimate. Therefore, if this is the trend of even

  By Pa Louis Sambou      If one reels together the pitiful state of affairs of our post dictatorship transition, one realises that its essence is no longer what marshals the delivery of what was supposed to be ‘the reform agenda’, something which has since mutated so much overtime, every party has their own unique  strain  of what ‘the reform agenda’ is. What an enigmatic pathogen! Perhaps the uniqueness of this strange enigma explains the choice of mediator, Mr Goodluck Jonathan who was so unique a political breed, he  united a divided and chaotic opposition and, Northern and Southern elites against him and repelled his natural political allies and as if that’s not bad enough an indictment, he went on to lose an election which could you believe was ironically rigged in his favour . So effectively, the mediator’s relevance past his sell by date is coincidentally an enigma in itself which perhaps must have been the sole criteria upon which his appointment as mediator was made. What cou

  By Pa Louis Sambou    A key objective behind the design and concept of republican governance is, to prevent a total autonomy of any of the three arms of government (the Legislature, the Executive or the Judiciary) from the other or the rest of the State edifice at the expense of the State and hence the existence of checks and balances as a countermeasure to tame any excesses. Historically, in our case that is, it is the Executive (the President and Cabinet) which has the infamous reputation of being the naughty partners out of the trio — usually transgressing, stretching and testing boundaries of acceptable conduct as well as allowances of their lawful authority, an adventure which the current administration hasn’t had the luxury to excel in thanks to unprecedented legislative scrutiny by this 5 th  National Assembly.    Whilst there’s little to fault in this 5 th  Assembly’s exercise of its oversight functions in comparison to previous ones, the same cannot be said of its commitment