BA, Development Studies; and Climate Change Project Officer at
Activista The Gambia.
Whether an art or a science, politics should be a practice that serves the purpose of development. For far too long, Politics has been caricatured and painted as a ‘game’ of hoodwinking and self-serving of politicians or political elites. Even though societies’ general evolutionary trend has resulted to the erection and evolving of institutions that ideally should create a system of politics hinged under the principles of good governance and respect for the fundamental principles of human rights, we still continue to be governed by people (‘representatives’) in political institutions who pay little or no regard to the welfare of the masses. Powell (2004) in hispaper Political Representation in Comparative Politics quoted Robert Dahl who, in 1989, observed that in the nineteenth century, the idea of representation “transformed democracy from a doctrine suitable only for small and rapidly vanishing city-states to one applicable to the large nation-states of the modern age. Dahl added that the change in democracy resulting from its union with representation created its own problems.
People vote in elections to choose their representatives in political offices. Voting to elect representatives is the beginning of the process that Powell (2004) refers to “procedural” representation”. Beyond this, is “substantive” representation, which begins with citizens’ preferences rather than with their votes (ibid). In the realm of political representation, citizens do not vote only for the sake of fulfilling their political and civic duties. But they equally have corresponding demands or preferences from their representatives. Such demands influence their relationship with their representatives and democratic representation means that citizens’ preferences should correspond to the positions or behaviour of their representatives (Powell, 2004). Usually, under a democratic multi-party-political system, voters’ make choices (of representatives) based on the similarities between their preferences and the preferences and behaviours of their representatives’.
In fact, it is observed that politicians seeking to be elected as representatives adjust as much as possible to align their campaign policy designs to the preferences of the electorates, they sought votes from. During these times, they grasp every means possible to reach to even the hardest-to-reach communities and spread their abstract plans. Unfortunately, the tragedy in post-elections has always been that elected representatives do not only fail to operationalise their campaign policies as per the demands and preferences of electorates, but they become unseen…especially by the electorates residing in ‘remotely’ located communities.
And to upend this tragedy of ‘being unseen’, I quote a woman in Kiang Massembeh, who (during an Activista community dialogue) said: “Our representatives especially the National Assembly Members (NAMs) should begin to be honest and represent us well. Our developmental challenges cannot be known if the very people who seek to represent us seldom see us or even talk to us. To ensure this, our NAMs should start establishing offices in their respective constituencies and be closer to their people rather than spending the lion share of their times trapped in urban settlements”. To represent a people goes beyond canvassing votes and occupying an office in their names. It comes with the responsibility (social contract) of serving their needs and preferences which can only be effectively done when a ‘strong touch’ exists.
