There is something admirably Gambian, and tragically predictable, about the sudden appearance of APEX, a coalition-building initiative determined to do what history has repeatedly shown to be nearly impossible; to unite rival political elites behind a single presidential candidate and persuade a deeply scarred electorate that ‘this time will be different’.
APEX presents itself as a solution to opposition fragmentation ahead of the 2026 presidential election. Its language is lofty, its intentions noble, and its confidence unshakeable. One might even say it radiates the serene assurance of people who have either forgotten 2016, or remember it very selectively.
Let us begin with the first and most stubborn obstacle APEX refuses to acknowledge, TRUST.
In 2016, Gambians suspended disbelief and accepted a coalition candidate on the explicit promise of a three-year transitional presidency. Institutions would be reformed. A new constitution would be enacted. Elections would reset the political field. What followed instead was a masterclass in political back-stabbing, selective amnesia, and elite self-preservation.
The result is an electorate now inoculated against coalition romance.
APEX asks this same electorate to believe, without new safeguards, binding mechanisms, or enforceable guarantees, that another coalition leader will not repeat the same betrayal. This is not optimism but historical negligence.
Then there is the matter of who exactly is asking us to believe.
The public face of APEX so far consists primarily of Mr Demba A Jawo, a former minister under President Adama Barrow, and a chairperson, Dr Jaye Ceesay Krubally, whose political biography appears to be known only to APEX insiders and possibly a few confidential WhatsApp groups abroad. We are told the rest of the founders also live overseas, though their identities remain carefully protected, presumably from public scrutiny, democratic interrogation, and inconvenient questions like “Who elected you?”
One is left with the uneasy impression that APEX is an ‘externally curated solution’ to an internally lived political problem, an initiative heavy on credentials, light on grassroots legitimacy, and serenely unconcerned with the psychology of Gambian voters.
Indeed, APEX seems to assume that Gambian politics is a technical puzzle to be solved by educated elites negotiating among themselves, rather than a deeply emotional arena shaped by loyalty, betrayal, identity, and lived experience. The masses, it appears, will be informed after the elites agree.
Which brings us to the central contradiction APEX refuses to confront, the UDP problem.
Every serious observer knows that no opposition coalition is viable without the United Democratic Party. And every serious observer also knows that the UDP, structured around the authority of its founder, will not accept a coalition arrangement that places another candidate above Lawyer Ousainu Darboe. The moment such a plan becomes real, the UDP will politely exit, close the door, and wish everyone “good luck.”
APEX’s apparent suggestion that figures like Talib Bensouda or Dr Lamin J Darbo will abandon their breakaway projects, return to the UDP, and submit once again to the leadership they left on principle is not political strategy, it is wishful thinking dressed as consensus-building.
PDOIS and GDC seem to have already declined participation, removing two of the few parties with distinct ideological identities.
APP Sobeyaa demonstrated in 2021 that moral clarity without political machinery wins admiration, not elections.
GFA evokes nostalgia for a PPP elite that history has decisively moved past.
PPA and NUP are intellectually impressive but electorally untested.
Mayor Talib Bensouda, whatever his promise, is yet to demonstrate an independent national base beyond former UDP loyalists.
In short, APEX is attempting to construct a pyramid without a foundation and hoping geometry will do the rest.
We are warned, correctly, that opposition disunity will hand victory to the NPP. But this is not new information; it is merely old reality restated. What is new, and what APEX fails to grapple with, is that unity alone is no longer sufficient.
Senegal has shown us something different.
Pastef did not win in 2024 because it had more money, more elites, or more establishment support. It won because it offered a radically different political message, carried by a candidate who symbolised rupture rather than rearrangement. Young voters did not need a coalition, they needed conviction.
Until APEX can answer a simple question of what exactly they are offering that Gambians have not already been betrayed by, its project will remain what it currently appears to be, a well-intentioned rehearsal of a play whose ending everyone already knows.
History, after all, does not object to repetition. Voters do.
Lt Colonel Samsudeen Sarr (Rtd)
Former Commander of The Gambia National Army
