Principles of Living · Bookplate

Yahya Jammeh

@yahya-jammeh

“Yahya Jammeh is a Gambian politician and former military officer who served as the president of The Gambia from 1994 to 2017. He is known for ruling the country for over two decades after seizing power in a coup, and for his authoritarian style of governance.”

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The manifesto · 15 principles

The leader’s vision should override liberal democratic norms when they conflict with regime survival.
Opposition should be contained, neutralized, or outmaneuvered rather than accommodated.
A ruler should cultivate an image of exceptionalism, including claims of unusual personal gifts or healing powers.
Development, security, and order are best achieved through centralized command.
Mass public messaging and symbolic gestures are important tools of rule.
Political survival requires constant vigilance against enemies, real or imagined, inside and outside the state.
Personal will and intuition are to be trusted over expert consensus or institutional constraint.
The leader should project certainty, strength, and spiritual confidence in all matters.
Traditional values, religious identity, and moral discipline should be used to define national purpose.
Public criticism of the ruler should be treated as a threat to stability and authority.
A leader should present himself as the embodiment of the nation’s will and destiny.
National sovereignty and anti-colonial self-assertion should be central to public life and political identity.
The state should be ruled through strong personal authority rather than through independent institutions.
Loyalty to the leader and the regime must come before dissent, pluralism, or compromise.
Power should be seized and held decisively; legitimacy comes from control, not from waiting for permission.