In a message dated 17/07/2001 04:14:50 GMT Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:


> << Let us not compromise on this issue. If the votes are not counted at the
> polling stations, then we should not participate in the elections. If
> Gabriel Roberts continues in this cronyism, we should not participate in the
> elections. >>
>
>

KB,

Indeed! The vote counting procedure should be central in the "make or break"
criteria by which we ought to gauge our continued participation in the
"democratic process". You know your piece - as always - was not only
brilliantly argued, but was eerily telepathic and prescient. You see the
night before you wrote your piece, i was on the phone with a movement
colleague and we were discussing precisely what you had endeavoured to spell
out here. As a subtext, i told this colleague of mine that he should watch
out for Dampha 'cos he is not only reactive but a proactive guy who has the
foresight to think way ahead of the oft times simple-mindedness and lack of
priorities this List sometimes degenerates into. I will come back to that
self-indulgent and ultimately destructive culture that seems to find a niche
here.

In the debates that i've had with my movement colleagues - especially as it
relates to election boycotts - we have reached a point where we have
tentatively formulated a barometre which we will use to gauge the atmospheric
pollution of the democratic environs of the Gambia. Ultimately, the plan is
to devise an exit strategy which we will invoke when and if our barometre
informs of an atmospheric pollution that doesn't augur well for free and fair
elections. Let me hasten to make a disclaimer. All views expressed herein -
even where they are reflective of the movement's or my colleagues' position
on this issue and else - are mine alone and the usual caveats apply. In this
post, i will not dwell on the formulation of such a barometre - which is, at
any rate, an exercise in subjective analysis. Rather, in this post, i will
briefly attempt to choreograph the sequence of moves that can make election
boycotts a fruitful exercise. Also, i will argue that ethics whilst they are
essential as both a leitmotif and narrative, they are by themselves not
sufficient for election boycotts. Ultimately, i will spell out that it is the
extent to which situational expediency can be be seized or exploited in any
given momentum that is the result of the mutation of ethical objections, that
should determine the boycott of elections. I must, however, indulge your
patience in this rather exordium exercise

Boycotting elections ultimately have to reflect an exit strategy. Such an
exit strategy has to factor amongst others the reflex and perception of
public and international opinion. Of course, the bane of the exit strategy
would be based on the extent of the atmospheric pollution of the election
milieu - that is the ethical equation. I invoke the reflex and perception of
public and international opinion because boycotting elections on mere ethical
grounds can invariably turn out to be fruitless. Consider this hypothetical
situation: the opposition announces its intention to boycott on such ethical
grounds like the vote counting issue, what will be the response of the APRC?
Most certainly, Jammeh will help field another "opposition" candidate in the
stead of the main opposition candidates. There would be mock elections and
Jammeh would win hands down. There would, perhaps, ensue a long and
protracted bickering over the validity of the elections and in the extreme,
Jammeh might be the subject of a few selective international sanctions.
Overall, and in retrospect, he might end up tempering the storms and it would
be back to the old crack-pot and irrational ways of a demonic dictatorship.

This hypothesis doesn't factor _CRUCIALLY_ the posited reflex and perception
of public and international indignation, condemnation and agitation. The
point is this: How well received an election boycott is to both the public
and international imagination far outweighs any ethical factor - insofar as
we are dealing with a politically expedient situation. What do we mean by
this? The point is not so much that boycotting the October elections on such
ethical grounds like vote counting is not correct. As it happens, boycotting
elections on such ethical grounds are the ideal in an ideal world. We do not,
however, live in such an ideal world. The point, however, is that boycotting
elections on ethical grounds alone runs a very calculated risk of ultimately
floundering at the alter of popular inaction. For boycotting elections to
sell well, it has got to exploit a situational crisis and ultimately create a
momentum that has the propensity to seize the imagination of the masses and
make them look and feel as the aggrieved parties in the crisis. Let us face
it. Boycotting elections on ethical grounds alone will at best seize the
imagination of the intellectual and political class of the country. In the
extreme, it could seize international indignation. However, the chances of
such argumentative ethics and the intellectual rigour it entails seizing the
imagination or indignation of the masses is at best remote - if historical
antecedence is anything to go by. Let history be my guide.

Here, the experience of Burma is telling and informative. When the opposition
NLD under the leadership of Aung Sang Suu Kyi won the 1990 Burmese general
elections, the SLORC military junta quickly refused to respect the wishes of
the Burmese peoples. The result was wide-spread anger and frustration and in
many cases matyrdom for many activists who went that extra mile to force the
dictatorship to respect the 1990 election results. Today, after more than a
decade, the momentum created by the military's refusal to bow to the wishes
of the Burmese peoples has all but fizzled out. How could this be? The
Burmese opposition, as extensive independent scholarship of the Burmese
opposition continues to unravel the aura of mysticism that Aung Sang Suu
Kyi's leadership exudes, were and still are not only under the house arrest
of the military dictatorship but also under the house arrest of Suu Kyi's
ethical fanaticism and delusions of moral grandeur. When the situation was
ripe for the Burmese to take on the military dictatorship - at a time when
the military was very vulnerable - all Suu Kyi could do with the powers
generated by the new momentum was to call for economic sanctions and
Gandhi-style pacifism. The end result? The momentum has all but fizzled out
and the military dictatorship is strenthened as it begins to enjoy a new
lease on life as the newest member of ASEAN. The democratic forces under Suu
Kyi are disillusioned and defecting en masse to other more militant groups.
My own hunch is that the military dictatorship will eventually mutate into a
South Korean style transition to some semblance of some Asian "democracy". If
this happens, it would not be as a result of the smartness of the military
dictatorship and their PR campaigners in Washinton and elsewhere. It would be
as a result of the intransigence of a remarkable but arrogant woman who has
failed to gravitate towards a momentum of significance because she remains a
house prisoner of irrelevant ethics and delusions of grandeur. The lack of
progress of the Burmese opposition to uproot the military dictatorship -
despite the numerous momenta and international support it had enjoyed - is a
lesson the Gambian opposition ought to study carefully and learn from.
Ultimately, dictatorships - benign or murderous - do not give up power on
ethical grounds. They only give up power because life has been rendered
desolate and inoperable for them by the agitated masses under the tutelage of
a pragmatic leadership.

The key trick for us - as things stand - is to turn ethical objections into
situational crisis that ultimately will mutate into a momentum or momenta
that will not only seize the reflex and perception of public and
international imagination but will lead on to mass indignation, condemnation
and agitation. It is such momentum that make history to go one direction
instead of another. Such momenta have historically and invariably factored
more situational expediency than ethics. As such, in our drive to formulate
an exit strategy, we should watch earnestly the extent to which our barometre
swings favourably towards a potentially expedient situation which is inclined
towards a momentum. There and then a boycott is not only mooted but the best
possible way to decapitate the dictatorship. To be sure, the narrative and
leitmotif of the momentum ought to be ethical; but its locomotive must
invariably be situational expediency capable of capturing the reflex and
perception of both public and international indignation, condemnation and
agitation. The debate now is this: How do we formulate the barometre that
determines such situational expediency?

Hamjatta Kanteh

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