By Cherno Baba Jallow
Africa-Press – Gambia. Subsequent to its comprehensive defeat in the 2021 presidential elections, the United Democratic Party (UDP) should have wasted no time identifying what had gone wrong. A quick review would have found several shortfalls in strategies, audience engagement, and personnel. All organisations, political parties included, must revamp operations time and again, and particularly after a long period of slump. “If you do not change direction,” the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu left us a cautionary tale, ”you may end up where you are going.”
All things held constant, the UDP will enter the 2026 electoral scene unchastened by its past failures, and therefore, destined for the same campaign playbook of years gone by. The ”perennial candidate” is on another mission. The candidacy of Ousainu Darboe, long deprived of excitement and better understood under the Law of Diminishing Returns, has already driven deep fissures within the party. It used to be said, a few moons ago, that Darboe needed to be the presidential candidate again in order to keep the party intact. The current reality points to something else: a bumper-crop of resignations.
These resignations are a striking detour from the cohesion of the UDP as normally understood. Gambians weren’t used to seeing such exodus from the party’s ranks. This anomaly, fast approaching tumultuous levels, has unmasked what is unclear only to the unrepentant Darboe loyalists: there are serious doubts about the prospective fortunes of the UDP leader.
But the Darboe loyalists keep pushing the boundaries of irrational exuberance. They ”must” make him president. Many UDP supporters believe Darboe should be president because he ”suffered” for the country. He went through humiliation, intimidation, and imprisonment. So, the voters are indebted to him for his ”sacrifices” and hardships during the dark years of the Jammeh dictatorship.
Almost 30 years ago, the UDP arrived on the political scene to serve as a defensive wall against an ascendant quasi-military dictatorship. The party helped delay, until it never materialised, former ruler Yahya Jammeh’s secret but cynical dream to turn The Gambia into a one-party dictatorship. The UDP helped keep the democratic option open until it almost gave up on it. Gave up, because it seemed all had been lost. Darboe was in jail. The democratic movement was in retreat. Had Gambians listened to some calls from the UDP to boycott the 2016 elections, history would have taken another course. But Mamma Kandeh and his GDC reassured Gambians about the ballot-box option.
As Darboe remained in jail, his personality soared. He built a larger-than-life status primarily within his own party. The resultant Darboe fandom in the UDP, once fascinating and sacrosanct to the party’s identity and continued growth, has now become an impediment to its rebirth. Like a fly in amber, the UDP is unable to move, thanks mainly to its blind allegiance to one man. It is symptomatic of the culture in the party and a huge disservice to Gambians that young, capable, and ideas-driven aspiring leaders have to prioritise one man over the priorities of the nation. They have failed to understand that there are limits to allegiance, especially when it involves the acquisition of democratic means to make amends for the wrongs in society.
It must be said that the UDP was once a political party, at its infancy, a few years into its adolescence and when it had a set of core objectives for the nation. But now it has turned into a cult driven by combustible passions and pent-up resentment. Ideas and changes have found the UDP an inhospitable climate to germinate because cults demand homogeneity, conformity and loyalty; they harbor a certain hostility towards criticism and contrarian views.
The UDP, or primarily those in-house members trapped in the illusion that the party cannot operate or succeed without Darboe, still don’t get what the rest of the electorate does: to be given the privilege of the presidency, ”suffering” for your country isn’t good enough. Among other tangibles, the voters must like you, too. Darboe continues to struggle in the likability arena. He still can’t grow a cross-over appeal; he remains a one-dimensional candidate. Why?
Source: The Standard Newspaper | Gambia
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