By Sarjo Barrow, Esq.

The views expressed are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of the United States Department of Justice or the United States.

It was seeing Fatima Sandeng sit across from Ebrima Sonko on Dialectic Space that compelled me to write this piece. There she was, the daughter of a man who gave everything, speaking with quiet dignity about a father she lost to the very government that now rules in democracy’s name. That interview stayed with me. And when I remembered that the National Assembly had passed the Elections Bill on September 29, 2025, the connection between that daughter’s grief and this legislature’s failure became impossible to ignore.

This is not a new concern. When the bill passed, Matty Jobe of Malagen was among the first to sound the alarm publicly, documenting what this law would mean for the democratic space Solo Sandeng gave his life to open. That warning went unheeded. Fatima’s interview has made it impossible to look away again.

Her words also arrive against a backdrop of failure that runs deeper than any single piece of legislation. Since the fall of Jammeh, The Gambia has been unable to replace the 1997 Constitution he drafted to serve his own grip on power. A new draft was produced in 2020. A constitutional bill came before the National Assembly in 2021 and failed to reach the required three-quarters majority. Subsequent efforts stalled. Nearly a decade into its democratic transition, The Gambia is still governed by the constitutional architecture of a dictatorship. The Elections Bill did not emerge in isolation. It emerged from within that unresolved failure, and it shows.

Solo Sandeng did not die in the abstract. He died on a street in Serrekunda on April 14, 2016, demanding one thing: that Gambians be free to vote and choose. He was the leader of the UDP Youth Wing. He was a husband. He was Fatima’s father. And he was arrested, tortured, and killed by agents of a state that feared exactly what he was asking for—a fair election. Nine years later, the National Assembly has responded to his sacrifice not with reform, but with a law that rebuilds the very walls he died trying to tear down.

The Bill Is Not Reform. It Is a Reversal.

The Elections Bill, now law, is by any honest measure a retreat from democracy. Its most significant provision is Clause 42(1), which institutionalizes economic exclusion as a feature, not a flaw, of Gambian political life. Nomination deposits have been raised to D1,000,000 for the presidency, up from D10,000. A National Assembly seat now costs D150,000 to contest, up from D5,000. A mayoral or chairperson candidacy requires D100,000. Clause 106(2)(h) raises the party registration fee to two million dalasis.

To grasp what these numbers mean in practice: an average Gambian civil servant or teacher would need at least ten months of unspent earnings to afford the parliamentary deposit alone, assuming they earn D15,000 a month. Sitting Assembly members have testified that many are forced to take out personal loans to finance their campaigns, and these are the people who have already made it through. This law does not widen the door Solo Sandeng marched for. It locks it, bolts it, and hands the key to the wealthy.

This is not a technical disagreement about fee schedules. It is a question of whose democracy The Gambia is building. If the answer is only the democracy of those who can already afford it, then the Elections Bill is perfectly designed. And Solo Sandeng died for nothing.

The 7th Legislature Cannot Inherit This Silence.

The 6th National Assembly had a historic opportunity. It squandered it. The 7th Legislature, when formed, must treat this not as a political inheritance to manage but as an unfinished moral obligation to fulfill. The Elections Act must be revisited, not just amended slightly but fundamentally reformed to reflect what the post-Jammeh transition promised: a democracy where any Gambian, regardless of wealth, can stand and be counted.

That reform must also sit alongside a serious, renewed commitment to constitutional replacement. An Elections Act passed under the 1997 Constitution remains built on an unstable foundation. Both obligations belong to the 7th Legislature, and neither can be discharged by the other.

But revisiting the substance is not enough. The name of the law matters too.

The United States has a tradition, imperfect but instructive, of naming landmark legislation after the people whose lives made it necessary. The Matthew Shepard Act. The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. The name becomes the argument. Every time a lawmaker invokes it, they are reminded of who paid the price.

The Gambia should do the same. When the 7th Legislature takes up electoral reform, it should pass it as the SANDENG Act, named for Solo Sandeng, so that his name appears not only on a monument to martyrs but in the statute books, binding every future government to the democracy he demanded.

Three Proposals for the Name

The author offers three options for the National Assembly, each using the acronym SANDENG from Solo’s surname.

The first is the Securing A Nation’s Democracy: Elections, Rights, and Governance Act. “Securing A Nation’s Democracy” is a full declaration before the colon. What follows states exactly what Solo fought for. Including governance extends the law beyond just voting day, making sure accountability is part of the process.

The second is the Standing Against National Dictatorship: Electoral and Nonpartisan Governance Act. This is the most direct historically. It names dictatorship in the law itself, which Solo stood against. “Standing Against” echoes his literal act on that April morning. It is a bold choice for a parliament still finding its footing after Jammeh, but it is honest in a moment that demands honesty.

The third is the Securing and Advancing Nations’ Democratic Elections, Norms, and Governance Act. The broadest and most internationally resonant, this phrase places The Gambia’s democratic project in a wider African and global context. It states that Solo Sandeng’s death was not just a Gambian issue but a global one.

Fatima Sandeng spoke of her father with the calm of someone who has learned to carry grief as a duty. The least this National Assembly owes her—owes him—is a law that bears his name and honors his cause.

The Elections Act is now on the books. The 1997 Constitution is still in force. Those doors are closed. But the 7th Legislature has a chance the 6th Legislature lost. It must revisit this law, lower the barriers, restore the promise, and pass the reformed Elections Act as the SANDENG Act, so every election conducted under it is in his name, and no future government forgets what it costs when his name is dishonored.

Solo Sandeng paid that cost.

The bill has been signed. The debt to him has not.

The 7th Legislature must settle it.