The Gambia's “Elected Autocrat Poverty, Peripherality, and Political Instability,” 1994–2006

Abstract

This article assesses “democratization” under military and quasimilitary regimes in the Gambia following the 1994 coup d'état until 2006. The “transition” program back to “civilian” rule in 1996, the 2001 and 2006 presidential elections, and the aftermath of deepening authoritarianism and economic crisis are also evaluated. The formation of a five—political party coalition, the National Alliance for Democracy and Development, in 2005 raised expectations for a new political dispensation. Its breakup in 2006, however, dashed hope of this occurring. President Jammeh won a third 5-year term amid suffocating external and domestic indebtedness, declining exports, poor economic performance, and endemic corruption. Continued poor leadership and policy choices are likely to exacerbate abject poverty, countercoups, instability, and conflict. McGowan's neo-Marxist/liberal political economy approach has helped rekindle more critical scholarship on the linkage between underdevelopment and conflict in Africa and the Third World as well as provide an antidote to neo-liberal economic policies.