In November 2014, agents of The Gambia's National Intelligence Agency arrested a young lecturer at the University of The Gambia over a survey. One of its questions asked citizens whether they approved of the way the President was running the country. He was held, released, rearrested, charged and eventually acquitted, then left the country when the state appealed.
Today that lecturer, Sait Matty Jaw, co-founder and executive director of the Center for Research and Policy Development, conducts the national Afrobarometer survey with an official mandate. On The Africa Desk Live on July 25, he said the change feels like both vindication and a lesson. The government now responds to his findings by issuing press statements disagreeing with them, which he counts as progress.
A sharp shift in mood
The number at the center of the hour came from the April and May 2024 Afrobarometer round: 77 percent of Gambians said the country was going in the wrong direction, up from 29 percent in 2018. Jaw attributed the shift to expectations no new government could meet. Democratic change was possible, he said, but quickly resolving the cost of living, youth unemployment and perceived corruption was not.
"Democracy with an empty stomach is not democracy," he said. "People who are hungry cannot engage."
He complicated his own finding. In the same survey round, most respondents said they would vote for the incumbent if elections were held the next day.
A constitution that died twice
The Gambia votes in December under the 1997 Constitution, written under the former president, which contains no term limits. The 2020 draft constitution died in the National Assembly, and a second bill was rejected at second reading last July, even though Jaw's data show that 67 percent of Gambians want the 2020 draft brought back.
The draft also carried a gender quota for the National Assembly, which currently seats five women out of 58.
"We have our democracy, but we do not have our change yet," Jaw said.
In the second hour, Madi Jobarteh, executive director of the Edward Francis Small Center for Rights and Justice, listed Supreme Court rulings that found government actions unconstitutional without anyone facing consequences. He then turned the critique on civil society, including his own career.
"The state exists for the people who work in the state," he said.
The Africa Desk Live airs every Saturday from 10:00 AM to 12:00 PM Central on Facebook, YouTube and X, and at moremediaempowerment.org/live.
