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! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask] if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------