By Omar Bah
The National People’s Party (NPP) has welcomed the latest CepRass opinion poll, positioning President Adama Barrow’s alliance as the frontrunner for the December 2026 presidential elections while fiercely rejecting respondents’ claims that his performance lags behind former dictator Yahya Jammeh.
CepRass’s recent survey, released yesterday, shows the NPP Alliance commanding the highest voter support nationwide, outpacing rivals like the UDP.
At least 46% of the respondents believe the NPP Alliance will win the December elections while 58 percent say President Adama Barrow is performing worse than former President Yahya Jammeh. Only 8% say Barrow is performing much better, 20% better while 12% say about the same.
Reacting to the findings in a Standard exclusive yesterday, the NPP Youth President Momodou Sabally said: “I must start by extending hearty congratulations to President Barrow and his NPP-led grand alliance that has been predicted, winner by the polls. That is the bigger picture.”
He hailed the findings as ironclad proof of Gambians’ trust in Barrow’s leadership, citing economic stability, infrastructure gains, and youth empowerment initiatives as key drivers.
Commenting on the survey’s findings that the majority of the respondents believe Barrow is underperforming compared to Jammeh, Mr Sabally categorically dismissed the assertions, labelling them “baseless propaganda” orchestrated by negative comments against the president on social media.
“Regarding those saying President Barrow is performing worse than Jammeh; I would blame that outcome on the overwhelmingly negative propaganda in social media propagated by the opposition. In an era of fake news where most people get their information from social media, it is easy to create wrong perceptions that are at complete odds with the existing reality of a country going through unprecedented socio-economic transformation underpinned by entrenched democracy and respect for human rights.”
He added: “Beyond that, to say that more than half of the population believe Barrow is doing worse than Jammeh (and at the concomitantly) the same population giving Barrow a lead that is more than the expected votes for the strongest opposition party, shows that something is wrong with that number. Perhaps this could be the result of some error in the data collected and analysed, since this kind of exercise does come with its shortcomings sometimes.
“We can also view this negative statistic through the observed reality that history can be nostalgic. It is normal for people to sentimentalise the past and call it the golden age but that doesn’t make it true. On all metrics of development, President Barrow has outperformed his predecessors with huge margins.
Again this outcome of the survey reveals the effects of misinformation and disinformation propagated by those who fear President Barrow’s incontestable supremacy among those seeking the Nation’s highest office.”
Third term
Commenting on the issue of Barrow’s controversial third term bid, Sabally said the Gambian opposition knew that they would lose against President Barrow in any free and fair election and that is why they started talking about the undesirability of a third term before election year.
“And now that the CepRass poll has confirmed their worst nightmare, we can only expect them to double down on this incoherent rhetoric.”
He added that the very instrument that guarantees “our democracy, the Constitution, is what guarantees President Barrow’s rights to seek a third term.”
“Beyond their personal ambition of replacing President Barrow is the broader and much sounder desire of the majority of Gambians seeking the continuity of peace, respect for human rights and sustained development under the Barrow administration. Is their desire to replace Barrow more legitimate than that of the majority of voters who seek the tangible fruits of democracy?
The outcome of the poll is clear: Gambia has decided for continued peace, stability and rapid socioeconomic development under the leadership of Africa’s Most #peaceful President.”
