Demba Ali Jawo, Former Minister of Information
By. D. A. Jawo
While the confirmation by President Adama Barrow during his interview with QTV that he intends to run for a third term, did not come as a surprise to many people, but some political analysts feel that it is not quite a wise move on his part, especially considering his administration’s obvious low ratings.
In the first place, the decision is a contradiction to his claim that he is a supporter of a term limit. While the 1997 constitution allows him to run as many times as he wants to, but it was thanks to the scheming by his regime that we are still stuck with that constitution.
In 2020, his government had the best opportunity to fulfill its election promise to usher in a brand new constitution which a majority of Gambians agreed was a good draft, but some members of the regime, using their power and influence, managed to recruit a few self-serving members of the National Assembly to do their bidding by denying the Gambian public the opportunity of deciding in a referendum whether they wanted to adopt it as the country’s constitution.
One of the contentious clauses of the 2020 draft was the proposal for him to serve only two terms, which both he and some members of his government were vehemently opposed to. Therefore, it is quite a misnomer to describe himself as “number one supporter of a term limit” when he had not only reneged on his promise to serve three years but he has also amply demonstrated that he had no intention of stepping down at the end of his second term.
In the interview, President Barrow also made it quite clear that as far as he is concerned, the interest of his party is more important to him than that of ordinary Gambians. “My party is a very young party, and I don’t want my party to die at an infant stage,” he said, adding that it is not wise for him to hand over the party’s leadership baton at this stage, which is an apparent indication that despite all the noise, the NPP house is not quite in order. The very fact that he has no confidence in any other member of the party being politically mature enough to take over from him, speaks volumes of its fragility.
However, if the last Afro-barometer survey is anything to go by, then a majority of the people of this country have lost confidence in the Barrow administration and as such, it is hard to see how they would give him another chance. Therefore, going for a third term could be quite risky on his part.
Despite all the criticisms against the regime, however, President Barrow’s legacy during his two terms had not been quite bad and therefore, the wise thing he should do is to maintain such a positive legacy and not to seek a third term, lest he ends up “Nyaka diss, nyaka lestek”.
There is no doubt that the NPP strategists are aware of the party’s poor performance during both the last National Assembly and local government elections when the opposition received more votes than the NPP. For instance, during the National Assembly elections in the West Coast Region and the Greater Banjul Area where more than 70 per cent of the population resides, the NPP and its allies won only three seats out of the 22 constituencies in the area. Out of the total national voter turn-out of almost 500,000, the NPP and its allies scored less than 170, 000 votes while the combined opposition, including the Independent candidates, scored over 300,000 votes.
Therefore, with the first-past-the-post system of the 1997 Constitution, the candidate who gets just one vote ahead of his/her next opponent, wins the elections, and if the trend continues, then it is hard to see how an NPP candidate can win in 2026. Also, with all that perception of rampant corruption within virtually all sectors of the public service, and the apparent failure of the government to take any visible steps to curb the situation, including its foot-dragging on setting up the long-awaited anti-corruption commission, it would be hard to see how the Barrow administration can win the hearts and minds of the electorate in 2026.