Dear editor,
Diaspora voting. Attestations. Electoral Reforms. System change… all comes back to political parties and National Assembly for failing to do the needful, not to mention the unconscionable Executive. There’s none to blame but them.
Hold your political leaders and NAMs to account. For 5 good years this country has just gotten more badly governed yet we have elected a President and National Assembly Members! What is their purpose? Don’t they know the problem of the country? Should we continue to live just consuming their excuses and accusations and counter accusations of each other?
What is the use of political parties in a democracy? Why do they have their members inside the National Assembly? For what? What’s the use of NAMs in a democracy? Are they fulfilling their duties as required by the Constitution! Not at all.
We cannot have a country with such bad laws and weak institutions that are doing nothing but only producing more and more poverty yet there is an Executive and a Legislature? What’s their purpose? There’s no doubt that cost of living, deprivation and access to basic social services have become dire in The Gambia! Yet we have political parties, a National Assembly and a President! For what?
Go beyond your love for your political party and political leader and President and demand them to do what they are supposed to do! Go to any democratic society and you will see parties fighting to create, change or reform laws and making institutions deliver to protect rights and end poverty! That’s what parties do!
Which party can claim to not know that attestation should not be in our laws? Didn’t they say it themselves way back in 2012 that attestations are fraudulent? Which NAM can claim he or she does not know that Gambians in the Diaspora have a right to vote? Can the President and his cabinet dare tell us that they don’t know it is their duty to make sure our laws are reformed including removing attestations and ensure diaspora voting?
Read candidate Barrow’s 2016 manifesto and everything is written there! So why has he failed to make it happen when he said in that manifesto that within 6 months of taking office he would change all laws that infringe human rights and popular participation and democracy! Did he do it?
Why is it that no party took it upon itself to severely put pressure on the President to do reforms with seriousness and urgency? It is not enough to make high sounding statements on the floor of the parliament or hold uncountable rallies or host numerous press conferences or issue well written statements, yet at the end of the day, there are no results! That’s unacceptable!
So blame no one for the bad governance of this country other than the President, NAMs and political parties. That’s all.
Madi Jobarteh
Kembujeh
