The United Democratic Party (UDP), which constitutes a large section of the Gambian opposition has been mired in internal dissensions which had crystallised into factional rivalries.
Political phoenix Ousainou Darboe, 76, Wednesday, announced he was offering himself as a potential candidate for the country’s presidency, in a move many saw as nipping in the bud any mild hint of UDP apparatchiks waiting to bask in this coveted honour.
Darboe had lost five attempts to win State House including in 2021 when he lost to incumbent President Adama Barrow who cut his teeth with UDP with which he fell out three years after his shock victory against long term ruler Yahya Jammeh.
The Gambia goes to the polls in December 2026 with Barrow already confirming his own reelection bid for a third term despite protestations from Gambians opposed to prolonging his stay in power beyond his second spell.
UDP have been sensing blood since they romped to spectacular victory in municipal and local elections two years ago, reigning supreme in the country’s biggest townships and leaving Barrow’s National People’s Party gasping for breath as they clung desperate to less populous municipalities in the countryside.
However in recent months this sense of UDP euphoria has been dampened by an apparent clash of ambition between Darboe and a section of his party.
The announcement of Darboe’s bid to lead the UDP at next year’s polls which will have to be endorsed by the party comes at a time of internal squabbles over the soul of Gambia’s biggest opposition grouping since 1996.
It all began when the idea was floated Talib Bensouda, the young charismatic UDP mayor of the most populous Gambian municipality (Kanifing) as a possible successor to Darboe got too vociferous.
According to UDP sources, Bensouda’s supporting cast in the drama have been living on thin hope that Darboe as party leader would contemplate retirement and consequently acquiesce to public wisdom and make way for a new presidential challenger from within its ranks. This apparently pricked the pride of another section of the party led by young and promising politician Yankuba Darboe, the mayor of West Coast the biggest municipality in the country. Rohey Malick Lowe, the female mayor of the capital Banjul also of the UDP completed this trio, locked in a triangle of political recriminations which in the past was only faintly suggestive. This time it was out in the public gallery – loud, fierce and undeniable. With support from Lowe, the young Darboe in a no holds barred interview, ripped into Bensouda’s alleged subterfuge to ‘steal’ the party from other apparatchiks and use it to serve his own political ambition nationally. Bensouda, a senior executive of the UDP was accused by Yankuba Darboe of sowing the seeds of division in his alleged quest for the party’s leadership. Sources say the mayor, a lawyer by profession is nursing his own ambition to lead the UDP with a view to eventually taking a shot at the Gambian presidency.
In a statement Bensouda without referring to the West Coast Region’s mayor by name dismissed the allegations as falsehoods and professed his loyalty to party leader Ousainou Darboe ‘for the foreseeable future’.
Bensouda said although he reserves the right as a citizen to opt out of the party and form his own political movement, his overriding wish was to help prepare the UDP for the onerous task of unseating President Barrow’s government and install in its place a progressive administration which would rein in corruption and improve the quality of life of its citizens.
Meanwhile Ousainou Darboe’s response sought to minimise if not roll back the damage caused by the publicly displayed rift between senior members of his party by declaring himself as the de facto UDP presidential candidate to face incumbent Barrow.
Close watchers of recent Gambian politics say Darboe’s posture should be understood from the prism of asserting firm control of his clearly divided party and provide a preemptive checkmate against the budding ambitions of some young party apparatchiks waiting in the wings.
Whatever happens from now on, the battle lines appear drawn.
As focus gradually shifts to the bigger picture of December 2026, life within the UDP will inevitably supply the subplot to Gambia’s biggest election showdown in living memory with many issues riding on it.
Even Darboe in a recent statement before the rift suggested that it’s going to be make or break for his party.
WN/as/APA