KB,

As ever, we must be grateful for your vigilance and foresight. Brother Kabir Njie made a very useful comment earlier yesterday. Rather an anecdote from his pal: that Jammeh will have a field day about this Florida vote. I can imagine the buffoon yelling shrilly on the Mic: "So called champions of Democracy cannot even hold free and fair elections. So who are they to tell us how to hold elections? I will send any so called Democrat six feet deep if they call outsiders to supervise our elections. What type of Democracy is this Democracy that disallows the votes of Blacks in Miami…" You could literally go and on. The point is that the current US election debacle has provided the fool with another tool to foul the already "bent banana" rules we call electoral rules in the Gambia. The AG’s illegal attempts to make amendments to an already tailored and soiled constitution should be seen in such light. It is merely the Docuwocracy or "traditional democracy" flexing its sinewy muscles.

How local opposition reacts to this travesty of Democracy is very crucial. Are they going to take the bait and allow themselves to be used to legitimise these idiotic amendments in the National Assembly by engaging in futile "debates" whenever the Bill is brought to the chamber of Assembly – assuming that is ever going to happen? I hope not. Increasingly, it is becoming clear that agitation is inevitable if there is to be any free and fair elections in the Gambia. Ideally, elections are better in emptying crackpots into the dustbins of history. Yet, we do not have such ideals in the Gambia. Far from it. What we have is a hotchpotch of imposed rules from the executive seemingly legitimised with the connivance of a muscle-less Electoral Commission that has no resemblance to the notion of Independent Electoral Commissions in a democratic polity. The precondition for any ideal milieu in which one hopes to see the genuine reflection of the will of the people being translated into their choice of leadership, is to a have levelling of the playing field that will see the influence of the executive/incumbency on the electoral laws or process become or perceived tacitly as non-existent. However, it would be drooling fantasy to claim that such ideal milieu exists in the Gambia to be able to hold free and fair elections. When such ideal conditions do not exist, taking part in elections can only help in legitimising and indeed, strengthening the crackpot Dictatorship. We hope the fight as you suggested will now be taken to the streets rather than restricted in arenas that exist only for the sole purpose of legitimising and strengthening the crackpot Dictatorship.

Hamjatta Kanteh