Buildup to 2026

Are Gambian voters moved by issues? – Part 2

Read part one here

With Jammeh defeated and exiled after a two decade stranglehold on The Gambia, the persecuted population would finally have some insights on how much he abused his powers and the consequences for the country and his countless victims.

As promised on the campaign trail in the buildup to the 2016 presidential elections, the goal of the change was to usher in a new dispensation, one that charts a new path forward, away from Jammeh and his legacy of abuse.

To effectively do that, there must be some stock taking, followed by recommendations and safeguards against a repeat of a similar state of affairs.

It was obvious Jammeh had too much power concentrated in his hands, reform in that aspect would mean some sort of devolution of power to make sure it is not concentrated in the executive alone but truly makes the co-equal branches of government function as they should. This would mean constitutional reform. A promise made to Gambians during the campaign that there would be a Constitutional Review Commission (CRC) to determine what reforms are needed within the current constitution or if there is need to draw up a new constitution.

 The instruments of power that Jammeh wielded enabling his abuse had to be reformed. In a sense, these instruments of power had to be blunted to serve within their constitutional mandate and not subject to the whims of one man. The most potent tools were the security services, the civil service in general and the courts all working to serve Jammeh’s abusive machinery. Reform was needed in all these areas as well. The promise on the campaign trail was made that there would be Security Sector Reform (SSR) as well as Civil Service Reform (CSR) to sanitize state institutions from the corrupt influences of Jammeh.

As evidenced by his increased wealth and lavish lifestyle, there was also the need to audit state accounts and determine how a low paid lieutenant in the Gambia National Army garnered so much wealth while in power, to the point of bragging that none of his descendants will ever know what poverty meant. As the highest paid state employee, the salary of a president was not enough to sustain the life of luxury that Jammeh lived. Investigating any potential economic crimes was also a promise made to Gambians.

The most egregious of his crimes while in office was of course the human rights violations and abuse of Gambians on a mass scale. The illegal arrests and detentions, the tortures, the disappearances, and the killings were so pervasive that they were almost daily occurrences. All of those crimes would be investigated through a Truth Reconciliation, and Reparations Commission (TRRC).

These issues formed the core agenda on which Adama Barrow was elected and constituted the kinds of reforms that Gambians were looking forward to.

Fast forward to 2021, five years after those promises and Adama Barrow being elected to office, none of the issues highlighted above were effectively addressed and to this day, Gambians are struggling to break free of the Jammeh-style misrule.

The commissions were set up as provided for by law and they conducted their inquiries as mandated, but once their work was done, the Barrow administration discarded their recommendations and opted for political expediency.

The Janneh Commission, which was the name given to the commission set up to probe Jammeh’s economic crimes, found abuses across nearly all sectors of government. The commission recovered some assets they found to have been illegally obtained or belonging to the state. The commission found various state employees to be complicit in these crimes and made recommendations for them to be barred from holding public office.

The Barrow administration chose to appoint some of them to high profile positions with access to huge amounts of state resources with no checks on them. The sale of Jammeh’s assets was marred by corruption and self-serving deals. Essentially, assets meant to be recovered for the benefit of the state were diverted to private pockets and the criminals found wanting were retained to benefit from the same system they abused.

There were zero reforms within the security sector, in fact some of Jammeh’s most notorious abusers in the service were retained and elevated to higher positions when they should be serving jail times. The same laws that stifled citizens’ rights and gave cover to police for abusing the rights of citizens such as the Public Order Act, were retained and continue to be used against political opponents of Barrow.

The recommendations made by the TRRC that some members of Jammeh’s hit squad who testified under oath that they took part in the torture and killing of innocents should be prosecuted and sentenced, were set free and left roaming the streets of Banjul with no consequence. In fact, the environment in The Gambia was so conducive for such abusers that some who initially absconded returned to The Gambia because they felt safer in The Gambia as far as facing legal consequences were concerned. And they were right, because three other adversely mentioned members of Jammeh’s private hit squad were found guilty and handed long jail sentences in other countries such as Switzerland, Germany and most recently USA, where one of them got  a 67 year sentence for his role in torturing detainees.

Despite the serious failures regarding the above issues, the most disappointing and the one that generated the most debate was the issue of constitutional reform. After wide ranging consultation and active involvement of citizens in all aspects of the drafting of a new constitution, through connivance with some members of the National Assembly, the entire project was derailed just because Adama Barrow, a man who promised to serve only one term of three years, objected to a clause in the draft that seeks to entrench term limits in the constitution to prevent self-perpetuating rule.

As if none of these were disappointing and outrageous enough, to make matters worse, Adama Barrow formed an alliance with Jammeh’s APRC, recruited Jammeh’s old agents and rewarded them with political office with promises of more. Inadvertently, there was a revival of Jammeh’s old tactics of divisive politics targeted along ethnic and tribal lines.

It was in that atmosphere that Gambians went to the polls in December 2021 to elect a new president or renew the incumbent’s mandate.

Despite all the foregoing, the voters opted to renew the mandate of Adama Barrow to another term of five years.

The justifications were varied, but ultimately it boiled down to personalities. Halifa Sallah presented himself as an alternative to both Barrow and Darboe. Despite his leadership both in the lead up to the elections of 2016, the formation of coalition 2016, and the aftermath of the elections during the transition phase known as the impasse, he was overlooked because unlike himself, some of his supporters were of the conviction that he would not win. So, some switched their votes to entrench the Barrow/APRC alliance as a measure to stop a UDP and Darboe ascension. Their rationale was that Darboe was to be punished for the failures of the Coalition and Barrow reneging on his promises. The false accusations of tribalism were leveled and used to charge UDP of xenophobia and instill fear in voters from minority groups.

Among the choice of candidates who were overlooked was the former Lead Counsel of the TRRC, a qualified, young and charismatic emerging leader.

Yet again, the voters proved that such issues ranked lower than their dislike for the person of Darboe and the UDP, and so we ushered in a new term for Barrow with all the attendant failures that only keep getting worse as currently being witnessed.

Here we are, on the cusp of yet another opportunity to effect change and the same old grievances are being re-echoed in the lead up to the campaign period.

In the next article we will assess the current climate and the ongoing leadership crisis within the UDP and what that portends for the chances of the opposition.