As the National Assembly gears up to debate the cabinet-generated 2024 Draft Constitution, everyone is waiting with anticipation to see whether the members would use this opportunity to redeem themselves, considering the fact that most people continue to blame the fifth legislature for the failure to still get a new constitution, more than seven years after the change of regime.
We can recall that the government of President Adama Barrow set up the Constitutional Review Commission (CRC) in 2018 to draft a new constitution, and after extensive consultations with Gambians both at home and in the diaspora, spending more than D116 million in the process, the commission produced a comprehensive draft which was submitted to President Barrow for onward transmission to the National Assembly.
Though many people hailed the draft as a good representation of their aspirations, even before it was tabled in the National Assembly for debate, it was quite evident that both President Barrow and some of his supporters were not quite happy with some of the clauses and it was therefore not a surprise that his surrogates in the National Assembly, without any concern for the huge amount of money spent on it, went ahead to kill it even before it reached the second reading.
If indeed the government was interested in fulfilling their promise to give Gambians a new constitution, any reasonable person would have expected them to simply re-introduce the 2020 Draft with the necessary adjustments rather than coming up with an almost completely different draft whose clear objective is obviously not only to further perpetuate President Barrow in power, but it is also a self-serving document that would give him a wide range of powers that even former President Yahya Jammeh never enjoyed in the 1997 Constitution. This is certainly a complete betrayal of the wishes and aspirations of the vast majority of Gambians who had risked everything to get rid of the Jammeh dictatorship and usher in a new dispensation.
It is, for instance, quite hard to understand why President Barrow would still insist on retaining the power and sole authority to appoint members of his cabinet and other senior government officials without involvement of the National Assembly, which is a complete deviation from the modern traits of democracy and good governance. There is also no justification for the president, as head of the executive to usurp the power and authority to appoint the speaker and his or her deputy as heads of the legislature, which is supposed to be a parallel arm of the government. The most basic tenets of democracy demand that the legislature should have the power to choose their own leader among the elected members rather having people who represent no one but themselves to be imposed on them by the executive.
It is also quite disappointing to see in Clause 72 (3) of the 2024 Draft that the president still wants to retain the power to appoint the chairman and other commissioners of the proposed Independent Boundaries and Electoral Commission (IBEC), which we are told should be done in “consultation” with the Judicial Service Commission and the Public Service Commission. It is however quite obvious to anyone who cares for the truth that such consultations with those two institutions are mere formalities because most of their members are his hand-picked appointees who are ready to jump at his command without asking how high.
Therefore, the credibility of the IBEC can only be guaranteed if the National Assembly and the other stakeholders are involved in the appointment of the chairman and other commissioners rather than giving all that power to the president, which can simply be likened to one of the team managers in a football match being given the power to appoint the referee. We are all aware of the credibility issues facing the present IEC and therefore, maintaining the status quo in the recruitment and appointment of its members would certainly not be welcomed by most people.
It is quite obvious that such a system of making appointments without consultations with the National Assembly had been open to abuse, with people being appointed simply for their family or other personal connections rather than their skills or competence. It is therefore quite necessary that the president’s nominees to such positions should be submitted to the National Assembly for thorough vetting to ensure that they do not just represent personal or other parochial interests but are ready to serve the whole nation without any such personal considerations.
Therefore, everyone expects members of the National Assembly to have the interests of those they represent in mind rather than their partisan interests when considering the draft. Of course, while compromises are necessary, and the UDP should avoid carrying out threats of not accepting “any dot being removed from the 2020 Draft”, this self-serving draft needs a complete overhaul if it is to meet the most basic aspirations of the people rather than merely to help perpetuate the Barrow administration in power.
While it is certainly in the interest of all Gambians for us to get a new constitution as soon as possible, if supporters of the 2024 Draft insist on it being passed without the necessary amendments, then there would be quite a justifiable reason to throw it out as not fit for purpose, just like President Barrow’s supporters in the National Assembly did with the 2020 Draft.
DA Jawo, a native of Niamina and resident in Kanifing, is a veteran journalist and former minister of information.
