“In The Gambia, We Vote With Stones” – Mai Fatty, Gambian Opposition Leader

“When you say Gambians vote with stones, what exactly do you mean?”, Paul AdomOtchere asked one of his panelists on last week's edition of Good Evening Ghana, on Metro TV. “Yes stones. The Gambia is the only country in the world where people use stones to cast ballots during elections”, opposition leader Mai Fatty submitted.

You would trust Paul for a punchy follow-up: “Walk us through that. How does it work?” Mr. Fatty had the answers up his sleeves: “You are given a stone when you go to cast your vote at a polling station. You enter a booth where there are holes for different contestants. The holes are marked with the names of the candidates. You drop your stone into the hole marked with the name of the candidate you want to vote for.”

Paul is visibly worried and probes deeper: “Are you alone in the booth and is there any inscription on the stone you are given?” The politician has more surprising revelations about the Gambian voting system: “You enter the booth alone, and you do not see how many stones have already been dropped into the holes. There are no markings on the stones, so you cannot tell one stone from another. After the voting, the stones are carried in sacks and transported to another place to be counted. On the way, it is easy to weigh the stones and tell which candidate is losing or winning. There, anything can happen. It is a matter of just swapping the names on the sacks.”

“Is the African Union aware of this?”, the Good Evening Ghana host asked. Mr. Fatty cuts in before Paul's sentence ends: “Yes, we have complained to the African Union and the UN that you cannot guarantee democratic elections under the current system in The Gambia.” From this point, other details Fatty supplies are no more surprising, even though they remain equally disturbing. For instance nobody is surprised to hear him report that international observers to his country's last elections abandoned the process because they could not comprehend the systemic electoral infractions the people of The Gambia have been made to put up with. Yet,

The Gambia is a democratic country. The stone is not the only unusual revelation about The Gambian political system. Mr. Fatty leads us to another discovery: “The President of The Gambia also doubles as the Minister of Agriculture, because he is the biggest farmer in the country.” According to the opposition leader,President YahyahJammeh has kept the Agricultural Minister portfolio in his office to enable him control and divert resources to his farm. He refutes the president's claim that The Gambia is working towards attaining food security because the people are denied the opportunity to make any gains from their labour. In Fatty's view, President Jammeh's presidency has impoverished his country and should give way for fresher ideas when the country goes to the polls in 2016.

What do you make of democratic stones in an age of enlightenment and technological advancement? Hate him for his obstinate intransigence on many things liberal, and loathe him for hisbombastic and uncivil gaffes about relations between the Western powers and Africa, but you will love Robert Mugabe for realistic assessment of African democracy. Among his many 'diplomatic insults', the Zimbabwean President has established that Western democracy cannot work in Africa. Perhaps, the no-nonsense president cannot be contested on this one. It may not be real stones, as in the case of The Gambia (that is if the opposition leader is not being mischievously political about it, politicians being who they are not), but there are lots of stony features about the democratic practice in many African countries.

In Zimbabwe, President Mugabe has made good his own proclamation that the West cannot expect to see their brand of democratic practice in Africa. He has almost personified and personalised the presidency for nearly three decades and still maintains unquestionable authority over the people of the former Rhodesia. His wife, Gucci Grace, is equally powerful as leader of the women's league. In such jurisdictions, Lord Acton's definition of democracy could be about anything but the people. When things get really heated up, the people could be asked to get out if the kitchen is too hot for them. In Africa, the people do not matter much because the leaders decide who matters.

Nigerians head to the polls next month to elect a new president and other local assembly leaders. Would President Goodluck Jonathan spring a lucky surprise again or good old Buhari is coming back? With Boko Haram posing serious danger to life and property in Africa's populous country, the world is praying and hoping for peaceful elections. Pundits and political connoisseurs have expressed varying views about the sanity of the Nigerian political system, where problems of systemic rigging are no news. Some of us considered the visit of former UN chief Kofi Annan to Nigeria quite timely. Mr. Annan remarked that if Nigeria fails, Africa has failed. And that is a truism.

Ghana has also had a few stony moments in our chequered political history. When people hail our democratic elections as exemplary, some of us search within and ask: Have we ever had really clean, free and fair democratic elections in this country? Did we not hold the Ghanaian electoral system to ransom for eight months when we slugged it out at the Supreme Court over allegations of electoral malpractice? Maybe there is nothing like free and fair democratic elections anywhere; not even in the United States of America, where some recent elections were also contested in the courts. The votes from Florida were a little too neat for an advanced democratic culture. Yet, we agree that Western style democracy is the best system of modern governance for any progressive people. At least it is better than the stony affair in The Gambia.

KwesiTawiah-Benjamin
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