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‘democracy’. However, real objectives change when confronted with security issues and further citizens’ dissatisfaction due to unmet expectations. For donors to therefore
influence democratization and human rights, they must ensure that their behaviour supports ‘unelected leaders’ efforts to re-establish democracy and human rights
in-stead of antagonise them and perhaps strengthen such leaders and shift their objec-tives.
5.2 ARE THERE PERCEPTION DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE EU AND
THE GAMBIA?
The Gambia and the European Union agrees in many areas particularly the need for development and improving the social life of people. Nonetheless, the two of recent have significant disagreements over democracy and human rights issues. It is difficult to construe such disagreement is because of perception difference and not blatant vio-lation of democratic principles and human rights by The Gambia.
The findings however suggest that theoretically, there is no significant perception dif-ference of democracy. However, on human rights, The Gambia and the EU have not only significant disagreement but also significant perception difference.
Even though the EU had not ontologically defined the democracy it promotes, The Gambia’s laws including the development programmes blueprints contended that The
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Gambia be governed under a representative system of government based on the con-sent of the citizenry expressed through regular elections (1997 constitution, vision 2020). This to a large degree resonates with the democratic principles advocated by the EU. In fact, the EU sponsored and observed all last four elections, and even though the Union cited some anomalies in the elections it declared all the elections generally free and fair. The partial funding of elections in The Gambia and the super-vision of these elections by the EU demonstrates significant similarities by both the
EU and The Gambia that elections are instrumental mechanism for democracy.
Apart from the elections processes, the EU treaty and The Gambia’s 1997 constitution
both express the fundamental rights of the people to live in democratic society where all adults have the legitimates rights to compete and participate in public offices. This is further highlighted in the treaties The Gambia signed and rectified as member of the ACP group since 1976. Even though the Lomè Convention does not stress much on democracy, the 1989 revised Lomè Convention at least commits members to the prin-ciples of democracy and rule of law. The Cotonou Agreement signed in 2000 became the newest treaty between the EU and ACP countries including The Gambia that put emphasis on principles of democracy human rights and rule of law. It does not only commits to these principles but also established mechanism to discuss these and a
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suspension clause in case of their continuous violation. The Gambia’s signing of and rectification of this treaty indicates acceptance of the principles and commitment to abide by them. On the other hand, the EU commitment to sponsor aspect of The Gambia National Indicative Programmes (NIP) further attests to the congruence of Gambia-EU policies.
The similarity in perception of democracy is not only indicated by the content of de-mocracy as a form of government as per the constitution or the number of treaties The Gambia signed within EU-ACP but also reflected by the people that completed the survey questionnaire.
Based on the survey questionnaire, people were asked to choose highly agree, agree, disagree or not sure to indicate their position on the statement(s) provided. From the thirty-one respondents, they were asked several questions geared toward matching their understanding of democracy and human rights to the most basic principles of these concepts.
The result indicates that the people perception of democracy and human rights reso-nate with the general perception around the democratic world. However, few varia-tions do exist particularly concerning human rights. The survey suggests that even though Gambian perception of democracy and human rights is similar to the widely
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accepted worldview, their accommodation of the full value of liberal democracy and universalistic human rights fall short of western understanding.
For instance, Gambians are more concerned of a government that is transparent and responsive to their needs. According to the survey transparency and responsiveness to their needs is enough to qualify any government as a democracy. In fact 61% highly agrees and 32% agrees that such a government is a democratic government. This nonetheless is not to conclude that concerns for opportunities and development su-persede democratic and human rights principles such as elections and restrained exec-utive. Only 16% highly agrees with that as oppose to 54.8% that disagrees. Similarly, 58.1% highly agrees and 32.3% agrees that a government restrained by law is prefer-able to one that functions arbitrarily. The analogy here is that though concern with development and opportunities, most of the respondents, 58.1% highly agrees and 38.7% agrees that democratic government is most capable of delivering to them a sta-ble and developed society as opposed to just 3.2% that disagrees. Moreover, only 10%
highly agrees while 66.7% disagrees that a strong fearless leaders unrestrained by laws is necessary for a stable and progress society. Over 70% of respondents believe that a democratic government must guarantee freedom of belief, opinion and associa-tion as well as separaassocia-tion of powers and have a genuine openness and competiassocia-tion for
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public office. This indicates that the people are aware of the necessities for democra-cy.
On human rights perspective, there exist significant variations with the European Un-ion. The main disagreement is the issue of the death penalty and sexual rights. While the EU is against the death penalty, The Gambia on the other hand maintained the death penalty in the 1997 constitution. Even though there has been a moratorium on the death penalty until 2012. The Gambia for the first time executed inmates on death rolls in 2012. Other area of differences includes the rights of homosexuals and treat-ment of political dissidents. While the EU recognises the rights of homosexuals and respectable treatment of convicts, The Gambia government rejects homosexual rights and continue to introduce bills that criminalised homosexuality, information sharing and maintained decrees that empower institutions to detain suspects beyond seven-ty-two hours. The Gambia also fails to ratify the Conventions against Torture and Disappearance of Person as opposed to the EU that firmly forbade torture in all its forms.
This disagreement is not only reflected in the official documents of The Gambia but also extends to the opinions of the people that completed the survey. However, I must
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mention that the respondents endorsed not all government actions against human rights.
The survey suggests that respondents might hold to their communitarian values and sometimes held values that are contrary to the liberal universal value of rights. For examples while over 64.5% highly agrees and 22.6% agrees that every individual is entitle to right to life without any reservation and 76% highly agrees to freedom of worship and belief like rights to security of person and property as well as rights to fair trials should be guaranteed and protected by every government. A close percent-age 61.3% on the other hand disagrees that individuals should have rights to sexual orientation. So many factors could explain this phenomenon; however, the most ob-vious explanation is the religious belief of the population. Since over 90% of the pop-ulation are Muslim and the rest Christian or animist all of whom have particular sanc-tity for live but also equal profanity for gay and lesbian in their religious teachings, the acceptance of rights to life and condemnation of rights to sexual orientation is un-derstandable.
Generally, perception held by the people apart from the few outlined variation are similar to the equally held perception within the European Union. Thus, Gambians are not undemocratic people neither are they adverse to human rights. This view was
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tified by their respond to the questions that asked if their country is democratic, only 6.5% says it is democratic and 38.7% says it is a democracy with a problem while 48.4% says it not a democracy. Equally, only 6.7% are very satisfied with the type of government while 73.3% are not satisfied with their type of government. This survey correlates with the measurement of the Polity IV that both express dissatisfaction over the type of government in The Gambia.
In the same vein, when asked if human rights are respected in their country, only 9.7%
says it is fully respected, 35.5% says partially respected and 48.4% agrees that human rights are not respected in The Gambia. Again the respondents views correlates with the well-researched reports of Freedom House that for the past years gives very low scores to The Gambia with respect to civil and political rights of individuals. For a breakdown of responses, refer to appendix on page 1002.