A closer look
Just a cursory glance at the composition of the 2002 National Assemblought to leave Gambians with a paucity of hope for Gambian democracy, and gripping premonitions of yet another five-year period of acute leadership inanity. You think this Assembly will be efficacious in tackling national issues and harnessing the national collective? That’s proclivity for wishful thinking. You think also the APRC members will recoil from their ardent partisanship to embrace the functionality of principled decision-making? Think again. Reality is, there is hardly a ray of hope for meaningful representation to emerge out of this bouillabaisse of political characaters. Thirty-three members (representing a majority) of the Assembly returned to power without undergoing the democractic process.
The UDP boycott catapulted these members to their seats in the Assembly. They were not elected (at least not by voting) by the people to earn them the mandate to represent their constituencies. Absent voter testing and evaluation and in deed, popular consensus, these assemblers’ unearned stints in the Assembly are a frontal assault on representative democracy.
Added to this list of ‘unelected’ representatives are the recently nominated members, some of whom had laid in political waste, but abruptly recreated and meritlessly entrusted with public office. Do the tabulation: the Gambian representative body has 53 members: 33 unelected, five hand-picked by the president, and 15 duly elected (they went through the rigmarole of electioneering and voter scrutiny). This is the jumble of a house masquearding as a national assembly charged with the task of managing the affairs of the state.
This uninspiring outlook of the Assembly has alerted, and unquestionably so, Gambian minds to the uncertainty of progress in governance in the years ahead. The first assembly contributed little or nothing to stimulate political and economic growth. Today, with a scanty opposition presence (only three in the assembly), and a staggering numerical domination by the ruling APRC, the politics of partisanship and selfishness (from the ruling party) will curtial immeasurably, frank and serious discourses on matters of governance. So where does that leave the Serrekunda Central representative Halifa Sallah? Better yet, why does Halifa matter? Why him? Halifa, perhaps a man whose intellectual profundity and political measuredness are unequalled in the Assembly, and one whose victory like that of his colleague Sidid Jatta, epitomized true participatory democracy, is deservedly glowing in mass adulation. Also, his presence in the Assembly makes him a stormy petrel amidst his opponents;they are being kept on the edge. Every idea he proposes will be scrutinized (not really), but looked at with scorn. And snobbishness.
Two handpicked assembly members and also twin opportunists (Nyimassata Sanneh Bojang and Fatoumatta Jahumpa Ceesay) recently spilt innuendoes on Halifa. Jahumpa in snide and spiteful remarks, warned against allowing the Assembly to be used by an individual member to make a name for himself or reduce the Assembly to a “constitutional university.” Said Bojang:”....the Assembly is not a forum to show to the people that you can deter the process of the Assembly by being stubborn.” She demurred: “We don’t want learned people in the House to show off themselves but we would accomodate genuine criticisms, effective participation, sincere and honest interventions but not interventions and observations that would just bore people. Such would not be accepted in the Assembly.” Well. Both NAMs were objecting to Halifa’s raising of constitutional issues about the invitation and swearing-in of assembly members on their first sitting. Both NAMs saw a tinge of intellectual arrogance in Halifa’s constitutional queries.
Of course, Halifa is wont to intellectual hubris, but his arguments were as valid as they were purposeful. Bojang and Jahumpa were simply haranguing. And harangue coarsened by addle-mindedness, will be a constant in the deliberative process of The Gambia’s representative body. Halifa should not need to be too deranged about this to the extent of thinking about resigning his seat, as he said he would rather do if he couldn’t “influence” the governance process in the Assembly. This is a principled declaration but it’s equally puzzling. What Halifa should, and apparently has not been fully able to do, is to grasp the limits of his victory and by extension, presence in the Assembly. He is in the minority, wafer-thin minority.
Thus, to expect to be a pacesetter for a sea-change in parliamentary attitudes and mentalities, ingrained and obscurantist, is as unlikely as it is outlandish. So Halifa must walk a fine line between representing his people to the best of his abilities and acknowledging to them, the hurdles he faces in having the Assembly take on a progressive, reformist path on matters of governance. To be chest-thumpingly rapturous about addressing constituency matters as jubilant supporters listen is one thing, but also cautioning the people against great expectations is quite another. Halifa must do both; so far he’s done more of the former. And that is tantamount to maladroit leadership. It goes without demurring that Halifa’s quest to be an influential leader making great strides in the Assembly is laudable.
There are so many issues tugging at the Gambian body polity that need addressing. But to debate the issues, move motions and pass bills into law, Halifa has the herculean task of fending off not only reactionary but also inactionary leadership in the Assembly. And: nevermind he has the authority vested upon him by popular mandate but the slender size of his political leaning reduces his power to effectuate decisions to vanishing points. So what should he do? What should be his strategy in the Assembly? Halifa must rely, as his best bet, on the powers of mass persuasion to stanch out old shibboleths and challenge his fellow members to dutiful leadership. He does this by assuming the role of an articulator of both the necessities and shortcomings of governance in The Gambia.
Already, he has taken on issues ranging from the national debt to banking crisis. He needs to continue on this terrain. That’s where he is most certain of being instrumental in not only shaping public consciousness but also being effective as a representative. Also, he has plans on strengthening participatory democracy in his constituency. Various committees have been established to look into various aspects of civil society with a view to enhancing communal growth and political consciousness. Halifa is also intent on giving back a chunk of his pay to his constitutency to help in economic development. Perhaps, all these initiatives might be shredded should Halifa resign and another person assumes public office in Serrekunda Central. What then would have been the purpose of electing Halifa? How much betrayal would have supplanted the enthuasism and verve that greeted his victory.
He was elected (and he knew so) with the painful expectation that he would join an Assembly beholden to partisanship that his colleague Sidia found a hard-nut to crack. The first Assembly voted to indemnify persons responsible for the gruseome killings of student-demonstrators in 2000. It also voted to shield Jammeh against any parlimantary inquiry into a crude oil deal the president allegedly had with the late Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha. Etc. It’s virtually the same Assembly again. Halifa should cease hankering after an “influential” role he is obvious of not attaining. Might he resign? Could he exercise unflagging elasticity to constant opposition to his legislative measures? Coming months will be a pointer to his decisiveness.