By Demba Ali Jawo
While the recent two area council by-elections held in Foni and Kiang, both of which were narrowly won by the NPP, may not be quite important, but they were no doubt significant indicators of what could happen during the presidential and subsequent elections scheduled for end of this year and early 2027.
There were no doubt quite important lessons for all the political actors, particularly those in the opposition. While the NPP were quite upbeat about their victories, but they should be aware that one swallow doesn’t make a summer. We were all witnesses to how President Barrow had a landslide victory over his opponents in 2021 but a few months later, during the National Assembly elections, his party was almost completely routed in the most populous areas of the country and the opposition took the popular vote. Therefore, they should be making a big mistake if they take this victory as indication of their unassailable popularity. Several other factors, including economic and social as well as the fact that not many people take such by-elections with any seriousness, may have played a part.
As for the opposition, it is yet another clear manifestation that if they fail to come together in a grand coalition, they would stand very little chance against President Barrow in the elections. We all saw what happened in the Bantanjang by-election in which the NPP candidate defeated his ‘No To Alliance’ opponent by a single vote, indicating that if there was a single opposition candidate, he would have likely won with a landslide.
Even though there are ongoing efforts to form an opposition coalition, but looking at the ongoing intra-opposition hegemony, frequently criticising and castigating each other rather than directing their spleen at the NPP, it would be hard to see how they would eventually accommodate each other in a cohesive coalition. A good case in point is the ongoing battle of wits between the UDP and its breakaway faction, the UMC. Rather than ignoring their personality differences and confronting their most formidable enemy, the NPP, they seem to be at each other’s throats. It is quite evident that since the formation of the UMC, most UDP supporters and militants seem to direct most of their aspersions against the UMC instead of the NPP. In fact we have even heard some of them expressing their preference to President Barrow over the UMC leader, Talib Bensouda. Some of them still don’t seem to accept the fact that Bensouda and his supporters have the inalienable right to leave the UDP and join any group of their choice.
Therefore, unless the opposition put aside their personality differences and get their act together, President Barrow and his NPP would continue to triumph over them.
