Dear Editor,
A politician’s character is tested most clearly after gaining the power they once begged the people to give them. Humility while seeking office means little if victory brings arrogance, intolerance, and contempt for ordinary citizens. Keltner, Gruenfeld, and Anderson’s scholarship on power suggests that increased authority can reduce behavioral restraint, while those with less power often behave cautiously because they face greater vulnerability. This helps explain why some of our politicians appear approachable when seeking support but become dismissive once they control resources and appointments. However, this is a tendency, not an inevitable transformation: political integrity requires maintaining respect for others even when one can act without immediate consequences.
In The Gambia and elsewhere in African politics, this problem becomes particularly concerning when relationships of mutual support turn into expectations of unquestioning loyalty. Anthropologist Alice Bellagamba’s research on Gambian practices of “karafoo,” or entrustment, illustrates the historical importance of protection, trust, and mutual assistance in social and political relationships. Her analysis provides a useful lens for examining how our political authority rests partly on relationships and obligations. The looming danger arises when politicians interpret public support as personal submission, distribute opportunities as favours, or treat criticism as betrayal. Such behaviour undermines the principle that public office carries responsibilities to citizens, including those who disagree with its holder.
The tangible lesson for Gambian and African political life is straightforward: financial success and political advancement should strengthen responsibility, humility, and accountability. A leader who once listened while seeking votes should continue listening after winning. Meaning, someone who demanded fairness outside government should uphold it inside government. Our people, too, should judge politicians by consistent conduct rather than wealth, titles, or generosity that demands loyalty in return. Real respect grows when people remain honest, accessible, and compassionate through changing circumstances. Your bank balance may increase and your political position may rise, but neither gives you the right to diminish another person’s dignity. Happy weekend from the land of wisdom.
Dr Lamin K Janneh
Brufut
Politics and the psychology of accountability and loss of patronage
Dear Editor,
The December presidential elections are just around the corner. Their proximity seems to be stirring lots of anxiety and generating a momentum of sometimes abusive and threatening rhetoric. This coincides with UDP’s persistent declarations, particularly by Mr Lamin Manneh (Snr), of their determination to protect vote integrity.
Could this have triggered this profound and conspicuous unease among members or supporters of the ruling party? There is little or no constructive debate on policy, but rather a gross display of verbal threats, aggression, and sometimes personal insults. A tense political landscape seems to be emerging.
Well, well, one does not have to be a psychologist to notice these defensive verbal and social media outbursts, which seem to reveal a lot about the deep-seated anxieties of the people behind them or a group’s broader dynamics.
Governance, especially good governance, has responsibilities for managing national and institutional resources. The emerging and persistent aggression from a ruling party during a defining moment of the campaign period clearly displays the psychology of accountability.
After getting used to a lack of, or loose control over, state affairs and facing the prospect of rigorous oversight, the mention of electoral integrity can be alarming. It is a chilling awakening of the prospect of financial reckoning and a threat to endless impunity relished over the years. Is fear of accountability the driving force behind this rhetoric as a proactive defence mechanism?
Thriving on a network of impunity, a lack of transparency, and a transactional governance framework with a hallmark of systemic corruption and favouritism can ignite existential panic towards a possible end to uninterrupted rule. These signal a lack of confidence in continuity and/or a dying ecosystem where a transactional relationship has long reigned.
Challenges to such a system outline the threat to beneficiaries of patronage and proximity to power, who lash out with insults at individuals and opposing parties. Is the UDP declaration an imminent threat to patronage and sycophancy?
Really, the expectation from a government seeking another term is meaningful debate on policies and, in fact, criticisms of proposed alternative policies of the opposition and their manifestos. Unfortunately, we are witnessing invectives directed at individuals, particularly “Dr” Manneh, one of the strongest advocates of electoral integrity.
By the way, Mr Lamin Manneh does not hold a doctorate. The persistent fixation and mischaracterisation of this international civil servant, with a career of several years behind him, needs some clarification. This degree was never self-acclaimed. It is no more than an honorary moniker given to him by the “Mengebe Kering” Radio during his erudite and rigorous deliberations on their programs. Over time, he has repeatedly clarified that it is not his. Well, the label just simply and deservedly stuck.
Such unwarranted attacks coming from supporters of a political party demonstrate a severe lack of substance to defend their party’s record whilst betraying an underlying fear, leading to the use of threats and insults as the only defence – very unfortunate.
The loud bravado is no more than a façade of fragility. To retain public trust, the ruling party and its supporters simply need to forgo such threats and insults against persons and parties, address the legitimate concerns of the people, and add a voice to the calls for electoral integrity and transparency. Threats and insults are not a display of strength. They expose an underlying weakness etched in the psychology of accountability and loss of patronage.
Just Thinking Aloud
Lamino Lang Coma
Bijilo
