I will submit this once again because some of the quotes were lost. I do
hope they appear this time around.
Hamjatta:
I have a flight to catch but if you wish to continue I will be back on Monday
to discuss it.
Here goes:
Brother Hamjatta:
Thanks for making me feel more comfortable with your objective statements
about diverging views and such. It is my opinion that a more accepting
stance for such views is definitely a precursor for a more tolerant and
introspective atmosphere on the L. We should NEVER resort to humiliation
tactics to discredit our brothers and sisters. In the same vein,
intellectual dishonesty to gain pole position for our ideas is a ploy we
should never resort to. Now quickly to the issues at hand:
It is glaringly apparent that there is not much mention of the “Njolfen”
theory in your rejoinder to my piece. This debate was supposed to be
centered on this and its unworthiness or worthiness in solely explaining the
1000 absentee ballots during the 2001 by-elections in Kiang East. Instead
you chose to explain the reasons why a high turnout was to be expected. You
also decided to explain the difference between voter apathy and voter
alienation. In your attempt to do the latter, you jumped between Africa and
Europe so much that the meanings of both these terms were left on one
continent at the expense of the other.
The basic assumption for your “Njolfen” theory is based on conjecture. It
is taken for granted that because the by-election was surrounded by
extraordinary circumstances (incumbent’s death and unprecedented economic
hardships), the voter turnout would be unusually high. There is nothing
wrong with this except this conclusion is drawn from inferences and not hard
facts or solid numbers. If you had produced numbers from by-elections similar
to the one in Kiang East which show a definite link between by-elections and
high voter turnout, this assumption would have been backed by empirical
evidence. But this is not the case here. The same can be said for the
purported evidence (Baba Jobe and Kebba Jobe’s admissions plus newspaper
reports). An inference is made from these reports that the level of
voter-buyout was high when in fact there is no evidence to support this. If
Baba Jobe, Joke or the Independent had provided accurate figures which show
high levels of voter buyout, then your basic assumption would have been based
on more empirical evidence.
On the other hand, my assumption about the high amount of absentee ballots is
based on empiric evidence or experience from past elections. The claim being
that because statistics show a regular pattern of less than high voter
turnout in previous elections in Kiang East, this predicament was not
surprising. A comparison shows a definite correlation between the absentee
vote of 1997 and that of 2001. This assumption is therefore not based on
conjectural but empiric evidence. A good example of a similar assumption
based on empirical evidence is as follows:
Based on statistics of previous elections, the voter turnout in the United
States has generally declined steadily since the 1960s. Therefore, a low
turnout during the just concluded presidential elections was definitely not
surprising.
This conclusion was derived from the statistics which show a decline in voter
turnout from then to present.. More specifically, studies have shown that
level of turnout in African and Gambian elections have been marred by a sense
of apathy from voters. This is strong empiric evidence to support my voter
apathy assertion.
For the sake of understanding, lets revisit the meaning of‘ voter apathy’
again. Once we do this we can also take a look at ‘voter alienation’ and it
will become very clear it was you who fudged the difference between the two.
The former is a very simple explanation for a voter’s indifference towards
the political process. Pease note that there is no quantifier for the
indifference. It cannot be simply explained from the perspective of rich
British yuppies that care less about politics because they can afford to
smoke cigars and watch beautiful thong clad bimbos on the French Rivera.
African politics, especially those of Kiang East, is a completely different
ball game. People there are indifferent for a variety of reasons, some of
which I put forth in my previous piece. The people of this area are
notoriously poor, some of the poorest people in The World as a matter of
fact. Abject suffering and wretchedness is the order of the day in these
parts though we might chose to ignore this if we like to view things with
‘rose tinted’ glasses. As a brother said, the farmer in Njolfen is more
concerned about how to provide ‘Chereh and Kobo’ for his family as opposed
to the politics of the UDP or APRC. This in my opinion is indifference borne
out of the abject wretchedness and suffering which the farmer experiences
there. These people couldn't care less what happened to the UDP
representative, about the human rights abuses of the Jammeh regime, or the
price of the Dalasi on the world exchange. Their wretched sense of
circumstance dictates this unfortunate scenario of apathy. This is what I
meant to describe, not voter alienation. I am afraid that your narrow
definition of voter apathy as follows did a disservice leading to its rather
premature dismissal as a reasonable theory:
"Whereas with voter apathy, as the term implies, there is a
general indifference towards elections as the electorate might be feeling
sated with their condition or simply trusting the devil they know rather than
switching to the angel they don't know."
Voter alienation is the process by which voters get alienated by a party's
message. This alienating message can come from one or multiple parties. For
example, a PPP candidate in Banjul South once insulted the mothers of Half
Die by suggesting that their kids go chop firewood for a living instead of
complain about the government’s failing in providing jobs. The mothers were
of course furious and this directly resulted in the PPP’s loss in that area.
The candidate effectively alienated those mothers by this message. The
mothers still voted just not for the PPP. Another explanation for the phrase
is when voters are alienated by all parties and as a result become apathetic
to the political process and choose not to vote. Like voter apathy the causes
for voter alienation are numerous. Voter alienation can be a cause for
voter apathy but this is not to say that voter alienation is a reason for
people not to vote. There is a fundamental difference here but unfortunately
you again lost the difference somewhere between Dumbutu and London when you
state as follows:
"At any rate, voteralienation is more likely if voters feel they have
alternative means of correcting the status-quo and or sending a message to
the political leaders responsible for their plight by refusing to cast their
vote."
There is no need to belabor your actual ‘Njolfen’ theory because it is shaky
and you have done nothing to disprove this. However, to make things worse
you managed to somehow confuse the meanings of voter apathy and voter
alienation. You also mucked up the difference between conjectural evidence
and empirical evidence. The ‘Njolfen’ theory cannot stand by itself or even
with support from the conjectural evidence which you posited. This was my
main contention with this theory from day one. Now you seem to have come
around full circle to admit that there is no way this theory can accurately
explain the absentee vote. The following statement from you puts it all in
perspective:
"True, the number ofvotes bought is unlikely to be known to the
point of exactitude. Yet this is a non sequitir: insofar as we established
that votes have been bought, it doesn't matter the amount bought; for that
alone, by itself, legally nullifies the by-election results. This is the
point."
Have a nice day!
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