By Omar Bah
Information Minister Ismaila Ceesay has cast the December 2026 presidential election as a watershed moment when Gambians will choose “wisdom over gamble, continuity over chaos, and progress over empty promises”.
Speaking in a Standard exclusive yesterday, Minister Ceesay framed President Barrow’s impending re-election as a political inevitability guaranteed by the rational choice of a pragmatic electorate weighing the known against the unknown.
“When historians writes the story of The Gambia’s democratic transformation, they will mark two watershed moments: the day we freed ourselves from tyranny in 2016, and a decade later in December 2026, when we consolidated that freedom by choosing proven leadership over risky uncertainty,” Dr Ceesay said.
Rather than reciting statistics, the minister painted vivid portraits of how Barrow-era infrastructure has transformed ordinary lives.
“Infrastructure is the ordinary Gambian mother who now travels from Kudang to Kiang Karantaba without spending hours in the scorching sun begging for mercy from passing private vehicles,” he illustrated.
He added that a seasonal construction worker in Basse can now visit his family in Serekunda in five hours instead of 12 or 16 while a trader in Farafenni can now transport fresh goods to coastal markets hitch free.
Dr Ceesay argued that new roads have done more than connect cities—they have reimagined the geography of opportunity itself.
For generations, he added, opportunity concentrated in Banjul and Serekunda, inflating rents and living costs while provincial towns stagnated.
“Today, entrepreneurs and professionals are choosing to live in Basse, Farafenni, and Soma—not as compromises, but as genuine alternatives,” he said.
“When roads work, markets expand. When markets expand, prosperity distributes.”
The minister highlighted that The Gambia has now become one of the top countries in Africa in terms of reliable power supply noting that President Barrow’s recent commissioning of electricity projects around the country has taken The Gambia to about 90% universal access.
“For over twelve months, The Gambia has experienced no major power disruptions. This is a reliability of an economic multiplier with tangible effects on small businesses. Consider the tailor in Bwiam, or the woman supplying ice blocks to fish sellers in Tujereng. For years, Gambian enterprises spent up to 10 per cent of their revenue on generator fuel and maintenance. That money wasn’t invested in expansion, employee wages, or innovation; it was burned, literally,” Dr Ceesay said. He noted that hospitals now operate diagnostic machinery without fear, and cold-storage facilities are preserving agricultural produce, reducing post-harvest losses that have eroded farmers’ incomes for generations.
Dr Ceesay pointed out that from 1965 to 2016, there were very few privately-financed high-rise buildings but since 2017, a significant lot has been completed or underway.
The minister acknowledged former president Yahya Jammeh’s role in establishing the University of The Gambia but argued the institution existed “largely in name” during that period.
“Today, UTG features state-of-the-art lecture halls, modern laboratories and workshops where students conduct actual experiments rather than reading about them, and libraries befitting a 21st century research university,” Dr Ceesay stated.
He noted similar upgrades across schools nationwide and new health centers in previously underserved areas, describing rural clinics that can now diagnose conditions that once required expensive trips to Banjul as “equity in action” and “human dignity made tangible.”
The minister emphasised that infrastructural achievements must be considered alongside presidential temperament, recalling The Gambia’s 22 years under a ruler whose volatility kept citizens in perpetual anxiety.
“President Barrow governs with a calm steadiness that allows institutions to function, businesses to plan, and citizens to sleep peacefully. This is not weakness—it is the rarest form of strength in a post-authoritarian society,” he said. “We still carry scars from those decades. The healing is ongoing. Replacing Barrow’s measured governance with anything that recalls the chaos of the past would be, quite simply, traumatic.”
Opposition
Dr Ceesay contrasted Barrow’s unifying approach with an opposition he described as demonstrating “more facility for internal fracture than for coherent governance proposals”.
“Gambians have watched the main opposition struggle to maintain internal cohesion even without the pressures of governance. We’ve seen more energy devoted to recrimination than to policy alternatives,” he said. The minister posed a rhetorical question: “If you cannot manage your own party, how will you manage a nation?”
Referendum
Dr Ceesay characterised the December election as a referendum on whether The Gambia will continue building on nearly a decade of progress or gamble on untested alternatives.
“Economic momentum is fragile. Investor confidence, once lost, returns slowly if at all. The infrastructure projects completed and underway create jobs today and possibilities tomorrow—but only if the political environment remains stable,” he said.
He concluded: “President Barrow will win re-election because Gambians are pragmatic. They evaluate leaders not by promises but by performance. The roads speak, the lights shine, the buildings rise, the institutions function and the country moves forward. That is why Barrow will win again.”
