By Tumbul Trawally
Childishness, vindictiveness, and petulance at the highest office in the world have played out for four years in Washington, D. C. They were on turbocharge in the past six weeks. President Trump’s refusal to concede and accept the obvious, six weeks after his defeat, has left all reasonable people scratching their heads. The American democratic system of government has never encountered such an assault on its basic foundation, since the Civil War (1861-65). At the same time the world has witnessed democracy and strong government institutions perform at their best. The separation of powers between the executive, legislative branches of government, and the courts acting as referees, were put through a [Stress Test] in the past six weeks in the United States. The Courts threw out nearly 99.9 percent of President Trump’s trumped-up charges (no pun intended) of voter fraud. The federal judges who threw out these frivolous cases are not beholden to any individual or president. Some of the judges who threw out President Trump’s cases were appointed by him. The difference maker is that they all have lifetime appointments.
Donald Trump will not concede as his ego will not allow him. I will go on the limb and predict that he will not attend the inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden. If he fails to attend his successor’s inauguration, it will not be the first. In 1801, John Adams, the Second U.S. president, did not attend the inauguration of Thomas Jefferson, the Third U.S. president. Adams left Washington, in the middle of darkness, and headed for his native town of Boston, Massachusetts. As the old adage says—there is nothing new under the sun. Donald Trump is a man who has been conditioned (Maslowian Style) to winning and having his way. As reported in a New York Times story, as a three-year old, Trump’s father transferred one million dollars a year to the young Trump to avoid taxes by transferring assets to each of his children. Furthermore, according to the New York Times, he inherited nearly $443 million from his father, yet filed for bankruptcies five times. Despite all that—banks continued to lend him money, foremost among them, Deutsche Bank of Germany, in New York.
Donald Trump will drag this saga out as long as he could because his relevance — in the eyes of his followers — hinges on it. It’s a great avenue for soliciting donations. He has collected over $300 million (and counting) from his supporters, since losing the elections. Unbelievable!!!!!!!! He owes the banks nearly $400 million and a big chunk of that becomes due next year. Once he leaves office, he will not be able to hide behind the presidential seal to avoid prosecution, for tax evasion, election law violations (porn star actress Stormy Daniels’ case), and insurance fraud. He will latch on to the presidency, as dear life. As Jimmy Cliff used to say “a drowning man will catch a straw”.
Donald Trump denigrated U.S. allies like former British Prime Minister, Theresa May; German Chancellor, Angela Merkel; French President, Emmanuel Macron; and Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau among many others. On the other hand, he cozied up to Putin of Russia, Kim Jung Un of North Korea, or nationalist leaders like Modi of India, or Bolsonaro of Brazil.
But first, let us look at how a bigot, demagogue, or a racist like Donald Trump came to power. The American electoral system is convoluted and archaic, to say the least, to most people. So, if you are confused—you are not alone! The election of president has some aspect of the British parliamentary system, where the party with the majority of parliamentarians chooses the prime minister. In some instances, parties form coalitions, as we saw with David Cameron and Nick Clegg, after the 2010 parliamentary elections. David Cameron’s Conservative Party failed to win the majority of seats in parliament. Five years later, in 2015, he did not need to form a coalition with Nick Clegg because he won an outright majority.
Similarly, in the American system, the candidate who wins at least 270 of the 538 electoral college votes wins the presidency, regardless of the popular vote. First, let us dissect the 538 congressional/senatorial seats of the Electoral College: 438 are apportioned for the congressional seats and 100 for senatorial seats. The 438 congressional seats are allocated to the fifty states on population basis: the bigger the state, the larger the number of congressional seats. For example, California, the biggest state in the union (by population size) has 53 congressional seats in contrast to Wyoming, the smallest state in the American Federation that has one congressional seat in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Second, let us dissect the 100 senatorial seats. Each state has two senatorial seats, regardless of its population size. For that reason, California has two senate seats and Wyoming has two senate seats. Because the allocation of the congressional and senatorial seats depends on a “winner take all” (whoever wins the plurality of votes in a state, wins the electoral college votes apportioned to the congressional seats and the two senate seats) for that state. The exception are Maine and Nebraska, where the congressional seats are allocated to the winner of the congressional district. As you can see, the allocation of the 100 senatorial seats is the undemocratic part of the American Electoral College. The 438 congressional seats plus the 100 senatorial seats gives us a total of 538 seats. Whoever wins 270 of those 538 seats wins the presidency. At this point, it just becomes an arithmetic reality.
This explains the reason we never had a President Al Gore, even though he garnered nearly a half million votes more than President George W Bush or a President Hillary Clinton, even though she had nearly three million more votes than President Donald Trump.
The Electoral College is an anachronistic relic of the old, male patriarchy and disenfranchisement of minorities and women. Women began voting in the U.S. exactly hundred years ago (in 1920). It goes back to the election of the first president, George Washington. In 1788, George Washington had a popular vote of 43,782. That is 1.09 percent of a population of approximately four million. The definition of an eligible voter was a white man who owned property. The U.S. Senate is similar to the British House of Lords. Their origins are rooted in the notion that poor people, minorities, and women cannot be entrusted with important decision making.
This brings me to the importance of having strong government institutions in The Gambia or anywhere else. They are vital for protecting minority rights and maintaining the rule of law. In the 1980s, former Gambian Chief Justice Sir Phillip Bridges, a holdover from the colonial era, was let go for acquitting (upon appeal) the robbers of The Gambia Commercial & Development Bank (GCDB) van transporting foreign currency to the airport. One of the bank employees was Felix Ceesay (who was my colleague at Standard Bank) before he transferred to GCDB. The defendants’ line of defense was that their intent was not to rob the van, it was to draw attention to the illegal outflow of foreign currency or reserves from The Gambia. That was a great miscarriage of justice. Judges — everywhere — should be free from intimidation. That was during Sir Dawda’s reign. We all know the circumvention of justice that occurred under Yahya Jammeh. Therefore, the Constitutional Review Committee (CRC) should have a provision for judges to have lifetime appointments.
As I mentioned in a previous posting, democracies are very fragile. The guardrails, which are the institutions — particularly the Courts — have to be regularly nurtured and strengthened to avoid collapse. In this instance, they worked perfectly and brilliantly. Unfortunately, we have seen democracies collapse, starting with ancient Greece or Rome, to the present.