Alagi Yorro Jallow
Following the completion of the Gambia’s electoral cycle at the Presidential, legislative, and municipal levels, it is evident that it’s time to overhaul the current Election Act and enact a new electoral system, a strategy that can deepen our democracy, improve the integrity of our national elections. In doing so, we hope that a new voting system will help to widen the understanding of the requirements for strong, democratic and cohesive society that can consolidate and sustain the Gambia’s nascent democracy and its electoral processes.
The adoption of a new constitution and new electoral system is the beginning of a new of era in Gambian politics. The Gambia is now at a crossroad between the past and the future. The past can never be restored, and the present cannot be sustained. The future is uncertain. Its course can only be influenced by a Third Republican Constitution and effective electoral system in place. The Gambia is not the only country on the continent to have abolished presidential term limits. It is, however, consensual that term limits can contribute to good governance and further deepen democracy in the country. The Gambia government should consider reinstating Presidential Term Limits as well as the requirement for Proportional Representation mode of election and an absolute majority for the successful candidate of any presidential election. In the same vein, and as part of future constitutional and legal reforms, to encourage consideration of the need to reinstate elections for community leaders (Seyfos and Alkalos), some of which play key roles in their localities during elections. The 1997 Constitution provides for the election of the President every five years and that an election must be held three months preceding the expiry of the incumbent’s term of office. If, on the first ballot, no one candidate receives more than 50 per cent of the vote, a second round takes place within 14 days President Jammeh’s key 2001 amendments included the removal of the previous two-term limit on the presidency and of the provision for a second ballot if a presidential candidate fails to obtain 50 Percent Plus One Vote, votes cast on a first ballot. Currently, Presidential elections take place under a simple majority system ‘first-past-the-post’ (FPTP) with the whole country effectively serving as a single constituency. Furthermore, 2003 amendment of section 48(3) of the constitution changed the voting system for presidential elections from “50 Percent Plus One Vote” absolute majority, a second round if no candidate obtained the required vote in the first round, to the first-past-the-post system (FPTP). The government of President Yahya Jammeh adopted the first-past-the-post method (FPTP) to ensure continuous victory in a country with a history of weak and fragmented civil society groups and opposition political parties. In the December 2016 elections, a coalition of opposition parties united and overcame their differences and fielded Adama Barrow as the standard -bearer of the coalition. The plurality electoral system allowed Barrow to win the elections.
President Barrow and his coalition government must be reminded that he presides over a minority government, as less than 50 percent of the voters elected him (he won 45.5 percent of the vote, with Jammeh at 37.7 percent, and a third-party candidate, Mama Kandeh, at 17.8 percent). President Barrow should champion to abolish the current electoral system of simple majority “first-past-thepost” (FPTP) voting system and introduce the Fifty-Percent-Plus-One vote. Here is where the problem begins with the current voting system: the government has failed in its quest for national cohesion and, worse, there is no deliberate effort by previous or current government to build a voting system, a Fifty-Percent-Plus-One, or the Proportional Representation voting system that will reinforce the Gambia’s democracy. The reforms cannot be entirely directed towards building a hardened ethno-political chauvinist electoral base. For example, despite the oddness and unfairness of the American electoral system, its defenders argue that it ordinarily “works” just fine. The winner-take-all system is bad for American electoral politics, just like the current “first-past-the-post” system is bad for Gambian democracy. The Electoral Reform Society is a political pressure group based in the United Kingdom that advocates abolishing the first past-the-post method (FPTP) for all elections. It argues FPTP is “bad for voters, bad for government and bad for democracy”. It is the oldest organization concerned with electoral methods in the world. Regardless, it is an incredibly easy move to simply propose an alternative vote system in our electoral politics, requiring more than fifty percent of the seats to be considered a majority government. Likewise, it would be an easy solution to work on implementing a Proportional Representation system, which is a whole new ball game. These are not challenging things to change and we need them for our democracy.
I believed that the upcoming constitutional and electoral reform promised by the government of President Adama Barrow may ignited the death of a political personality who protested for electoral reforms in the Gambia and precipitated a radical change of government after twenty-two years of autocracy. As part of the government’s reform promises, an alternative voting system should be adopted in the new Constitution and in the Election Act of the Gambia. The government of President Barrow and the Independent Electoral Commission should resolve to reform and abolish the current FPTP system of electing the president; adopt a Fifty-Percent-Plus-One voting system that will see the country turn away from the winner-takes-it-all scenario; and introduce a system of Proportional Representation that will enhance stability and the representation of minorities.
The Gambia had been using the FPTP or winner-takes-all system to elect presidents, members of the National Assembly, mayors, chairpersons and ward councilors. This new voting system will mean that candidates will have to amass more than fifty percent of the vote to win. In the second-round voting system, when no such majority is obtained by any candidate in the first poll, a runoff should be held in which the two candidates who obtained the highest numbers of valid votes should be the only candidates to run in a second round of polls. On the face of it, the proposal is straightforward and makes logical sense. Yet, it is more complex than it first appears, and if adopted it would revolutionize the way electoral politics is done in the country. This proposed new voting system will reduce the toxic politics of regionalism and tribalism in our electoral politics. These two electoral systems, Fifty-Percent-Plus-One and Proportional Representation will also enhance national stability, which is the bedrock of any successful nation. A simple majority (FPTP) system is not fair, and the standard electoral objections ring a tad hypocritical when we consider that most candidates receive less than fifty percent of the vote, and that parties regularly form “majority” governments with far less than fifty percent of popular support. Yet, when it comes to switching to a system where more votes matter, a true majority of voters suddenly is good enough for our democracy.
On the issue of representation, Proportional Representation will be dramatically improved through this 50 % + 1 vote system as compared to under FPTP. The proposed system of voting patterns will show that all the major parties have significant support in all areas of areas across the country. Proportional Representation would honor the diversity of opinion, so all regions would have representation from both political parties, and quite likely minorities will have better representation as well. Regional sweeps by a single party would be a thing of the past. Rural and Urban voters would still have the same amount of representation, but they wouldn’t all be the same color anymore. In addition, all regions of the province would elect representatives to both the government and the opposition under a proportional system. Entire regions of the province would no longer be completely shut out of government decision-making, as they are now, with all their representatives doomed to irrelevance on opposition benches. Political parties have long enjoyed “majority” governments while representing only a minority of voters.
The country has only elected one true majority government in its history. That was in 1996 and 2001, when one party, the APRC of President Yahya Jammeh won 55.6 percent and 58 percent of the vote, which was magically transformed by FPTP into 95 percent of the seats! Garnering 55.6 per cent of the national vote, Yahya Jammeh’s election victory was deemed dubious by observers, who considered the poll neither free nor fair. Nevertheless, he was declared the civilian President of The Gambia in October 1996, and has ruled since Proportional representation forces parties to either earn the majority power or cooperate with other parties. Either way, the legislation that is passed reflects the will of a true majority of voters and is much less likely to be reversed immediately after the next election. Studies show that countries with proportional representation have better outcomes in terms of voter satisfaction and voter turnout. People understand that their votes matter, regardless of their party preference. The choice in the upcoming constitutional and electoral reforms must come down to one basic principle: do we believe that one minority after another should have the right to do as they please, or do we opt for a system which represents voter preferences more fairly? When you compare how these systems work for voters, rather than parties, there’s no comparison: for Fifty-Percent-Plus-One and Proportional Representation win hands down.
Ever since Donald Trump won the Presidency in November 2016, many Americans have been complaining about their “outdated” political model, known as the Electoral College. Some pundits believed that is “undemocratic” and needs to be reviewed, to ensure that the presidential candidate with the clear majority in the popular vote is elected. First, as we’ve seen, a candidate can receive the most votes on a national scale and still lose in the Electoral College. In all, five presidential candidates have won the most votes but lost the presidency. In 2000, George W. Bush was declared the winner of the general election and became the 43rd president, but he did not win the popular vote. Al Gore garnered about 540,000 more votes than Bush. However, Bush won the electoral vote, 271 to 266. In 2016, Donald Trump won the electoral vote by 304 to 227 over Hillary Clinton, but Trump lost the popular vote. Clinton received nearly 2.9 million more votes than Trump, according to an analysis by the Associated Press of the certified results in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. Second, under a winner-take-all system, most of states are shunted to the sidelines, forced to watch from afar as the candidates fight it out in a few battleground states. “The Connecticut state House passed a measure that would give the state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who won the popular vote, if enough states promise to do the same. The bill would have the state join an interstate compact that grants participating states’ votes to candidates who wins the popular vote,” the Hartford Courant reported. In short, the new Third Republican Constitution must reinstate the principle of having a president who is put into office by the absolute majority principle. It should be a requirement that no one would be declared a president if he or she does not have more than 50 percent of the votes cast. The Jammeh administration removed this provision in the 1997 Second Constitution and replaced it with the simple majority principle where one could win an election without having the support of the majority of voters.
