In a series of letters from African journalists, Sierra Leone-Gambia writer Ade Daramy said that the Gambia has witnessed a remarkable prosperity in democracy over the past five years, but its strange leadership election system has not changed.
Most Gambians I know are proud of their unique voting system.
When they go to the polling station to elect the president on Saturday, December 4th, they will not use the ballots.
Instead, after arriving at the polling station and verifying their identity, voters will be directed to a series of drums painted in the party colors of different candidates.
Protruding from the top of each drum is a pipe into which voters will insert the marble handed over by election officials.
As the bell rang, officials could hear if anyone tried to vote multiple times.
When the vote is over, the marbles in each barrel will be counted and counted—just like a ballot.
This voting method was introduced after independence in 1965 because of the high illiteracy rate in the Gambia.
Since Yayha Jammeh reluctantly left power after losing the 2016 presidential election, some reforms have been ushered in.
Some election officials secretly wish to give up marbles is one of them.
They believe that with the opening of the democratic space and the possibility of more candidates participating in future elections, marbles and drums may become too cumbersome.
In the past, only about three drums were needed for each polling station.
During Mr. Jammeh’s 22 years in power, competition seemed meaningless.
In fact, there are only three presidents in the history of the Gambia.
Mr. Jammeh seized power in the 1994 coup and overthrew the independent leader Dawda Jawara.
Many observers admit that the only election that Mr. Jammeh continued to win fairly was in 1996, when there was still a honeymoon period after the coup d’état, and his authoritarian atrocities had yet to gain a foothold.
They said that the subsequent elections would benefit him, and his failure in 2016 seemed to surprise him-and his successor Adama Barrow.
This is to a large extent a two-horse race, and Mr. Barrow is the consensus candidate elected by the opposition coalition. The third candidate, Mama Kandeh, received approximately 17% of the vote.
President Barrow ran for another election, this time on the votes of his newly formed party.
At some stage, it looks like he will face 22 candidates-given that the pachinko system still exists, because there is no real political will to change it, this is a nightmare scenario for the Election Committee.
The good news is that these candidates have been reduced to six-still a lot for a country of about 2.2 million people.
All these candidates have proved how much this country has changed and is still changing.
In the past, people were either afraid of competing with Mr. Jamme or thought it was a waste of time.
Today, in what is often referred to as the "New Gambia", fear has disappeared and freedom of speech abounds.
A comedian named Wagan has a weekly TV show in which he makes fun of all major politicians, including the president-which was unthinkable five years ago.
Journalists can comment on anything without worrying about being driven away, tortured, or killed like what happened to Mr. Jameh.
Some of these atrocities were exposed during the Truth, Reconciliation and Compensation Commission (TRRC), which heard testimony from nearly 400 people from January 2019 to May 2021.
It released a 17-volume final report last week-the president now has six months to respond to it and its recommendations.
This means that the party that wins on December 4 will begin to heal the wounds left by Mr. Jammeh’s tenure.
Even in exile in Equatorial Guinea, the former president tried to cast a shadow in the polls.
More about the truth commission:
The 56-year-old is still a divisive figure-such as the failure of the Patriotic Repositioning and Construction Coalition (APRC) with the party he founded.
It has formed a formal alliance with President Barrow’s party-which annoys Mr. Jamme, who instead released a series of recordings in support of Mr. Kander.
However, like the rest of the world, the real shadow cast on Gambia is the new coronavirus pandemic.
This country with beautiful beaches and abundant wildlife is heavily dependent on tourism and has been severely hit by travel restrictions. Many people have lost their jobs.
There is an endless stream of tourists, but more needs to be done to return to the pre-Covid level.
Even before the emergence of the coronavirus, in terms of its size, the country provided a disproportionate number of immigrants seeking to travel to Europe.
Many (though not all) are driven by unemployment.
For those who get the most marbles on December 4, developing and creating opportunities in the Gambia to make it more attractive to residents, not just tourists, will be the biggest challenge.
Six candidates are running for:
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