September 27, 2006

The Gambia, a small, tongue shaped country extending into Senegal, held an election last week. Elections in Africa are not especially notable. I’ve seen them firsthand in Uganda and Burundi; I talked to my reporters who were ordered to stop drinking tea in a Kigali café because they had to vote. Tomorrow (Sept. 28) there’s an election in Zambia, and sometime in 2007 Cameroonians will go to the polls to pick their local councilors and members of parliament.

Because there appears to be an election somewhere in Africa every week, what made the Gambian elections stand out? Aside from the ingenious voting mechanism itself (voters dropped a marble into color-coded drums so that even the illiterate could vote in privacy. Whoever had the most marbles won), it was the honesty.

A day or two prior to the elections, The Gambia’s president, Yahya Jammeh, said to a crowd of supporters and over the country’s radio and television airwaves that no coup and no vote could remove him from power. In fact, the president, who took power in a coup 12 years ago, wants to rule for another four decades. The president, in a shocking upset, won with 67 percent of the vote. (The opposition has since claimed there was massive fraud. Shocker!)

Election monitors went through the motions of making sure that the number of marbles in the drums matched the number of voters. The opposition, to their credit, went for the win. By all accounts I’ve read their campaigns were energetic and active. But all of that doesn’t matter, unless people feel like they can make a change in their lives and in their world. What’s the point of development aid and elections if the people they are intended to help don’t think they’re going to change anything?

In Cameroon they voted the bums out. The bums managed to stay. Why would a Cameroonian then feel like they have any influence over events? This may be one of the things that hold this continent back more than anything else.

The word for this, I guess, is hope, although it’s not exactly right. Just about everyone I’ve met on this continent is hopeful that life will get better. They just don’t feel like they can help make it happen. (If anyone has a better word for what I mean, put it in the comments section of the blog. And yes, I do write for a living.) Why try to build something if you don’t think it matters?

I think I have unending respect for the 33 percent of Gambians who thought that they could affect the future in their country; who weren’t swayed by the free T-shirts and flowing patronage. I say I think I have unending respect because I’ve seen enough elections in Africa to know the extent to which people vote along ethnic or regional lines; or who are similarly bought by the opposition. But I’m sure there were at least a few Gambians who did bravely vote against the incumbent.

It does take some bravery. In another stunning bit of honesty, I heard a Zambian parliamentary candidate say on BBC radio that regions that don’t vote for the winner in tomorrow’s presidential elections won’t get any money from the government. So even people who do think they can change things have that notion beat right out of them.

This is a feeling that is hard for me to understand, because Americans are always told that each vote counts, that each individual can make a difference. I think that’s part of what colors my commentary when I say Africans need to do this or do that. The truth is people need to feel that they can make a difference, whether alone or in a team, before things start to improve. The rest of the stuff – getting businesses started, balancing trade, increasing real democracy not just sham elections, etc. – can’t be solved without getting at the core problem.

The question, of course, is how to get people to feel like they have any of this control. Wow, that feels really trite and simplistic. Your thoughts?

…………..

When is a government shake-up not a government shake-up? When it’s in Cameroon. Paul Biya had a Friday Night Special last week, and aced out a few members of his government. It was more reshuffling the deck, except for firing the loathsome minister of communications. The secretary general of the presidency, the equivalent of the chief of staff, replaced the foreign minister. But the foreign minister replaced the secretary general of the presidency. The sports minister is new – a former high school gym teacher.

The papers here say what happened last week doesn’t matter all that much. Most opposition papers say that the big thieves are still in office, including Finance Minister Polycarpe Abah Abah. I just wanted a chance to type his name one more time. One paper had a screaming headline that the big homosexuals were still in office. To this paper and many Cameroonians, that is far more important than any amount of money these suspected homosexuals might have stolen.

Diplomats told me the Godfather does this every few months to keep people on their toes; to show who’s boss; and to put on a demonstration of his willingness to reform for the international community.

This is yet another way in which Biya is a mafia kingpin. He lets every one of his underlings know that they only serve at his pleasure; their huge lifestyles all depend on the Godfather’s approval. The big shots are always looking over their shoulders because they never know when the knife is coming down in their backs.

As another one of Rebecca’s co-workers said, in a way it’s a sad life for the scoundrels.