This is another stroy I read from www.progressiveafricans.com. 

        The Progress of the Gambian Demoacracy
 By Ebou Jallow, Former Spokesman AFPRC

  
 A multi-party democracy, especially the one created by the current Gambia Government, is an antidote against the menace of factions that has always undermined individual liberty in a pluralistic society.  Gambian democracy today is at the threshold of regenerating a historical legacy that began well before the politics of clientelism during the PPP era.  The PPP government led by Jawara was a pseudo-democracy with dubious credentials that held truth and justice hostage for thirty years.  During this period the Gambia has experienced a dissemblance of rights and a dissimulation of tyranny as rule of law.  Human rights under Jawara’s PPP was reduced to an empty rhetoric of freedom in the abstract without any substantive liberty; dissent emasculated, and the Gambian opposition rendered effectively voiceless.  
1994 witnessed the decisive end of the self-perpetuating autocracy of the PPP.  Thanks to a young Yaya Jammeh and the AFPRC the Gambian Sphinx was buried six feet deep, and an opportunity for justice, socio-economic development, and a fledgling democracy was finally delivered to the people with almost seven opposition parties all competing for public office.  NADD, another political faction with a family resemblance to the dead PPP, has chosen to resurrect the ugly head of tribal politics and demagoguery under the rubric of false pretenses of speaking for the “people”.  The Gambian people never asked the NADD politicians to register another political party with the Independent Electoral Commission.  NADD has become a Trojan horse pregnant with all the malcontents of ethnic politics in Africa, and yet speaks the language of fashionable “democracy”, “rights” and the “rule of law” to the West.  Nobody should believe their hype- NADD intends to divide the peace loving Gambian people with
 a scheme of strategic voting behavior that restricts liberty and voter preference.  The registration of NADD as a political party reconfigures the electoral system , and reduces the individual voter to a “Buridan’s ass”.  Instead of encouraging a diversity of platforms, NADD forces the Gambian voter to make one choice between only two alternatives that does not in any way reflect the diverse interests and values of the Gambian.  The Gambian demography is essentially a multi-ethnic majority.  In such an environment only rational debates between competing platforms can sincerely generate the values of the electorate, and forge the nation’s interests.  
The truth is that the member political parties of NADD just cannot sell it and succeed in a fair multi-party electoral system.  As such they have resorted to subterfuge, deception, and instigating resentiment to established authority all in the name of “freedom of speech”, “human rights” and “democracy”.  This is nothing short of a perverse violence to the values that the West cherishes, and shame on the members of US House Representatives who pleaded on their behalf. NADD is nothing but a power grabbing tool deployed to achieve what they can never get in a decent and honest competition.  
The National Assembly and the President of the Gambia are entrusted by the Gambian people to protect the sovereignty of the Gambia against all enemies, and enhance justice.  During the past twelve months NADD has transmogrified into a dangerous faction, corrupt with tribal politics, and open to foreign influence that is hostile to the country's national security.  NADD has become a security risk that cannot be trusted to uphold a solemn pledge of allegiance to the Gambian Constitution.  Therefore the National Assembly should pass legislation canceling the registration of NADD with the IEC with immediate effect.  The constitution authorizes the National Assembly to take such an action, and this should be executed as an honorable duty to the Gambians who deserve peace, prosperity, progress and nothing less.
                                               


		
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