Koto,

Thanks for forwarding this. Just the other day I was on the phone with a
friend and we joked about how Jammeh and his likes must be having a field
day about what's going on in Florida; how he was most likely to shout at his
next rally: "This is what I have been telling you all the time, there is no
democracy in this world!"

Even though I am not a fan of the US because of among other things, their
horrible past (and present)and foreign policy, the fact still remains that
we humans must continue to strive for the most ideal way of governing
ourselves and that we cannot in all fairness indict "democracy", by which
the majority of us mean the ballot system, just because flaws have been
found in its American derivative. Whether we like it or not, it is the most
efficient way of choosing who will represent us at all levels of government.

So, I think that the least we can do is to try to find ways and means of
improving the system with the understanding that the Americans are not the
founders of the system but are just themselves trying implement it to the
best of their collective advantage. So flaws in the American system of
voting does not necessarily translate into failure of the electoral system.

The Scandinavian system of voting and government, for example, are to my
opinion, among the most ideal in the world: constitutional monarchs with
only ceremonial powers for the monarchy. How about African constitutions
that provide for a ceremonial president and a very stong parliament? Just
some thought.

Regards,

Kabir.




>From: Sidi M Sanneh <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: US poll fiasco draws cutting comparisons from African writers
>Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2000 12:36:26 GMT
>
>   NAIROBI, Nov 13 (AFP) - The fiasco surrounding the US presidential
>election
>has undermined the United States' role as the standard against which all
>other
>democracies should be judged, according to African newspaper columnists.
>   The foreign editor of Kenya's Daily Nation, Henry Owuor, predicted that
>the
>Florida recount debacle would stain the international reputation of the
>United
>States.
>   "Former president Jimmy Carter knows what this means -- his
>Atlanta-based
>Carter Foundation will think twice before sending him (again) out to Africa
>to
>preside over elections.
>   "Even the foundations run by the two top parties will henceforth be
>frowned
>upon in the same capitals (where) they once lectured election officials on
>the
>fairness of elections," wrote Owuor.
>   "For Africa, the losers are the pro-democracy campaigners who used the
>US
>as an example of a just society. The victors are the dictators who are
>under
>pressure to improve their human rights records. Already, Zimbabwe's
>(President) Robert Mugabe has ... expressed his delight at the goings-on in
>Florida."
>   The fact that the president is selected not on the basis of the overall
>popular vote but by the all-or-nothing electoral college system, which
>determines the president on a state-by-state basis, has raised a few
>eyebrows.
>   Lucy Oriang', jumping the gun in Nairobi's Daily Nation on Tuesday,
>confessed to being "confounded by the fact that the man who won the popular
>vote ended up a loser in a country that purports to uphold democracy, in
>other
>words, the people's will.
>   "But there is something vaguely familiar about the distorted logic of
>the
>electoral college. Most African countries are, after all, ruled by men who
>came to power with minority votes, or simply rigged their way in," mused
>Oriang'.
>   Charles Onyango-Obbo, editor of Uganda's Monitor but writing in the
>Nation,
>sarcastically declared himself surprised that "Americans can go the Moon
>and
>land a probe on Mars, but can't steal an election."
>   John Kitongo, head of the Kenyan branch of Transparency International, a
>corruption watchdog, picked up the theme in the East African, published in
>Kampala and one of the most respected newpapers in the region.
>   "What do Americans know about elections?" he asked, going on to imagine
>an
>ironic scenario with the US polls being organised as they are in Africa,
>with
>African observers monitoring them and the CIA and FBI closely involved in
>their organisation.
>   "Opposition leaders would cry foul and the top leadership of the
>incumbent
>party would issue their own statement accusing the opposition of trying to
>rig
>the polls. ...
>   "Anxiety levels would reach a high enough pitch to force some people to
>rush out to supermarkets to stock up on non-perishables."
>   The African monitors, Githongo imagined, would eventually declare that
>the
>election "saw its fair share of ballot stuffing, head-cracking, bribery and
>the like, but in the grand scheme of things, when all is said and done,
>(say)
>it generally represented the democratic will of the people."
>   This was a jibe at the attitude of the election monitoring industry,
>which
>in the past has shown a tendency on this continent to declare given polls
>acceptable "by African standards."
>   Githongo was also drawing a direct comparison with elections in
>Zanzibar,
>a
>semi-autonomous state of Tanzania, held on October 29 and November 5 and
>widely discredited by the opposition and international election observers,
>some of them from ... the United States.
>   afm/gd
>
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