By Omar Bah
An EU Election Exploratory Mission (EU ExM) arrived in The Gambia yesterday to assess the country’s pre‑electoral environment and advise whether a full European Union Election Observation Mission (EOM) for the 2026 presidential poll is necessary, feasible and advisable.
The delegation — led by Ms Gunn Benjaminsen of the EEAS Democracy and Electoral Observation Division and accompanied by Ms Beatrice Del Bubba of the European Commission’s Service for Foreign Policy Instrument — includes four external electoral experts who will remain in the country through 24 June.
The team will meet national authorities, political parties, civil society organisations, media actors and stakeholders across the electoral ecosystem to gather first‑hand, factual information.
“The mission’s mandate is to collect objective evidence on the pre‑electoral environment and advise on whether a full observation mission would add value to the electoral process,” an EU ExM statement said. The mission’s findings will inform Brussels’ decision on deploying a larger, fully‑mandated EOM for the presidential election later this year.
As part of its in‑country programme, the EU ExM has invited media and civic actors to a closed exchange on Tuesday 16 June at 15:45 at the EU Delegation in Fajara. The meeting — explicitly not a press conference — is intended to solicit expertise and perspectives on the media landscape, information integrity, and other issues affecting the electoral context.
The ExM has signalled particular interest in the media environment and information integrity. Recent civil society reports and observer briefings have flagged growing use of social media, rapid spread of misleading content, and emerging risks from artificial intelligence tools that can produce manipulated images and deepfakes. The closed session on 16 June will allow media practitioners and CSOs to brief the team on these threats and present mitigation measures already underway.
The Exploratory Mission will submit a report with its factual findings and a recommendation to EU authorities. If Brussels judges a full EOM warranted, a separate decision will be taken to deploy a formally mandated observation mission with a broader team of long‑term observers, short‑term observers, and technical experts ahead of the presidential election.
