As Gambians return to the poll to choose their next president next year, one of President Adama Barrow’s challengers in the last general election has doubted the prospect of Mr. Barrow, seeking another mandate from the Gambian people, citing the President’s “dipping popularity”.
Essa Mbye Faal of the APP-Sobeyaa alliance asserted that President Barrow would not poll 25% of the vote in the next presidential election if at all he decides to run for another term in office.
“Peter, I am telling you if Barrow runs, he will not score 25%,” Faal asserted in an interview with Coffee Time With Peter Gomez on Monday morning.
When asked by the program host Peter Gomez as to why he said if the president runs because, according to Mr. Gomez, that is guaranteed, Faal replied:”Peter, I am telling you Barrow is scared. Barrow is very, very scared. I doubt Barrow would run in 2026. I doubt it, I doubt it. If he runs, he will not score 25%. And let me tell you between 2024 May and July, 2025, has Barrow gotten more popular in your view? Well, let me answer the question. I can assure you he is becoming much less popular now than before because now, he has really come across to the Gambian people as a promoter…I am just saying…This is my opinion, which I am entitled to [and] nobody can stop me from having an opinion. He said things that show that he is promoting corruption, he said things that suggest that he is in fact protecting those in his government that are involved in corruption.”
It would be recalled that President Barrow while recently addressing a political rally in the Central River Region of The Gambia issued a clarion call on his party’s supporters to work towards security a 75% victory for the NPP in next year’s presidential poll, but Essa Faal believed the NPP leader cannot lead his party to victory in 2026 and was just “playing political mind games” as regards his 75% victory call.
“I think he is just playing political mind games. If you look at the empirical record, it’s[75% target] not borne out of that,” Faal maintained.
Faal, who insists on his position that the 2021 general election was marred with irregularities, explained that Mr. Barrow was declared to have won 53% of the vote cast in the 2021 election, but this dropped to 27% in 2024 as revealed by an Afrobarometre survey that year, indicating a significant decline in the president’s appeal to voters.
“He came down to 27%. So, he’s in fact lost near half; that’s about 49%,” Faal pointed out.
