Dear Editor,
Can you imagine the mayhem and the nightmare that would be unleashed when Senegalese Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko and Pastef wanted to impeach President Diomaye Faye? “The constitution says that the president is elected to serve for five years in power” is the literal mainstream understanding and narrative of how democracy functions in Senegal and The Gambia.
Actually, according to democracy and the rule of law, Sonko and Pastef have every democratic and legal powers to impeach Diomaye when they choose to do so. But it’s inconceivable how Sonko and Pastef could possibly impeach Diomaye without political mayhem breaking out in Senegal.
The cost of misrepresenting and misinterpreting the democratic governance system is very expensive and costly to both The Gambia and Senegal. We can understand how difficult and dangerous it can be to teach a dog speak French.
But dogs learn to speak French nowadays! These are the lawyers and their befuddled understanding of the interplay between politics and law to govern a democracy would improve, get better over time and learn to speak the normative democratic language.
To change the democratic governance narrative and culture in Senegal and The Gambia, Sonko and the other opposition politicians cannot afford to literally present and interpret democracy as a political governance system.
Democracy is a structured and procedural political governance system.
Democracy means rule by consent and mandate.
Imagine if Diomaye decided to dissolve the Senegalese parliament tomorrow against every conceivable democratic principle and ideals? But according to the Senegalese Constitution and that of The Gambia, the president has the powers to dissolve parliament?
To add insult to injury, the opposition leaders, the so-called educated and the competents, present and interpret democracy in their literal and the wayward version. When the president has the powers to dissolve parliament, that’s no longer a democracy but an elected dictatorship.
The president can never have the powers to dissolve parliament in a representative democracy. If we want to live in an orderly and peaceful rule of law democracy, we cannot afford to present and interpret the democratic governance system and procedures out of context and text.
When the text is out of tune with the context, democracy follows laid out political processes and procedures to align the anomaly. We simply cannot afford to present and interpret the democratic governance system and protocols literally and out of context. Laws in a democracy are presented and interpreted within the light and spirit of the democratic governance concept and practices.
We cannot write stupid, anti-democratic laws in the constitution and insist on upholding the bad laws. It gets more diabolical when the opposition leaders reference and repeat of the same anti-democracy narrative talking points.
The hopeless political situation then becomes a case of The Cure killing the patient. If you want to guarantee the death of the patient (bad governance, corruption and lawlessness) keep the same diagnosis and prescription and refuse to listen.
Yusupha ‘Major’ Bojang
Scotland
