Unnecessary Political Gimmicks The Independent (Banjul) COLUMN August 6, 2001 Posted to the web August 6, 2001 D.A Jawo Banjul, The Gambia "Better a Little With Contentment Than a Lot With Contention" - B. Franklin Wonders really never cease in this country. When the present ruling clique came to power in a military coup in 1994, they told us that they were soldiers with a difference, but it now appears that even as civilians, they are still behaving quite differently from the norm. Can anyone ever imagine that for just taking delivery of an ordinary generating set, the entire government machinery and virtually the whole of the population of Banjul would to be mobilized to sing and dance in the streets for it, apparently making monkeys of themselves? That is certainly well above and out of the ordinary. This country has been taking delivery of generating sets of various shapes and sizes since time immemorial and never had anyone ever come out of the streets to dance for it. Why therefore should that be the case this time? I have no doubt that the captain and crew of the ship that brought the generator and indeed everyone at the Port would have been quite surprised to see such antics being displayed just for the receipt of a generator. They would also certainly wonder what type of a country this is that would mobilize an entire capital city to sing and dance for a new generator. The truth is however quite obvious to all those familiar with the brand of politics being played in this country nowadays. Everyone with some commonsense would know that the regime is using every available opportunity to campaign for the forthcoming presidential elections, and all those unusual antics were part of that campaign. Rather than creating such events just to use the public media to campaign, they should be honest enough to come out plain to do that rather than try to hide behind such antics. While President Jammeh and his regime may have a genuine wish to provide electricity and other amenities to the people of this country, but it is certainly unfair and unethical to use those facilities for their own political ends. Despite what President Jammeh has been saying and all the noise that his 'wailers' are making, those facilities are being provided from public funds and it is therefore quite unfair for any particular political party or political aspirant to use them for heir own political ends. That unfortunately is what seems to be happening in this country. This is indeed a clear manifestation that the APRC leadership, despite all the things they are saying about their adherence to free and fair elections, they do not seem to have any genuine intention to create a level political playing field, otherwise they would they would not have been using public public resources and facilities to score points against their opponents. There is no doubt that they want to capitalize on the situation and use the public facilities, including the public media to mount a campaign for the APRC, even before the official campaign period when the opposition parties are also expected to be given access to the public media. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------