How ‘underestimated’ Barrow won second term in the Gambia

An image of three opposition politicians together has become one of the most referenced among Gambians on social media since the December 4 presidential election in the West African nation.

Ousainou Darboe, Mama Kandeh and Essa Faal, three of the five people who challenged Adama Barrow, had convened a press conference to announce their rejection of the results that put the incumbent on the path to victory.

Eventually, Barrow was declared winner, but with such a huge margin that it has left everyone in awe, even his own supporters.

Barrow, a rank outsider and latecomer in politics, had already made history when he defeated veteran Yahya Jammeh in an open election in 2016, despite the latter winning more than 75 percent of the vote in previous elections.

Critics of the opposition say they did last what they should have done first – forming a coalition against the incumbent.

But even more surprising about the image was the affinity of the politicians involved, particularly Darboe and Kandeh, who have hugely divergent views. But such is the impact of the surprising performance of the incumbent in the election. Even the combined votes of the five challengers could not beat what Barrow won.

How did a man considered a political novice manage to do this? Was he underestimated?

Barrow came to power in 2016 on the ticket of an opposition coalition against former President Yahya Jammeh, who was forced into exile after rejecting the outcome of that election on the grounds of irregularities.

After about a year into his first term, Barrow fell out with his coalition partners and subsequently formed his National People’s Party (NPP), under whose ticket he has secured his second term with a resounding mandate.

In the history of Gambian politics, no leader has been brought down without opposition politicians coming together. This is probably why independence leader Sir Dawda Jawara ruled for 30 years, until he was removed by the barrel of the gun in 1994.

Jammeh, who removed Jawara, would himself rule for a long time – 20 years – partly because of the inability of the opposition to come together and form a coalition, despite several failed attempts, until 2016 when they managed to pull it through.

So, after the 2016 elections, many Gambians would have thought that politicians had learnt their lessons.

As always, the reasons to remain disunited seemed more compelling for the opposition ahead of the 2021 election. For one, the 2016 coalition had disintegrated amid accusations and counteraccusations of betrayal among the various parties.

But very importantly, the individual parties felt less threatened under Barrow, the “accidental president” considered a novice whose newly formed party could easily be outdone by established ones.

What no one expected was Barrow taking unexpected, sometimes extreme, routes to stay in power. One thing he did to make up for his deficiency, for instance, was to surround himself with people with a wealth of experience, even if they were people with murky backgrounds.

They included Seedy Njie, a former MP who stood with Jammeh even as he tried to bring the country to the brink of war to resist calls to hand over power to Barrow during the impasse in 2016.

Njie, a former student leader, was a nominated member of parliament.

In the dying days of the Jammeh regime, as his ministers were ditching the increasingly isolated leader, Njie was one of the few people who stood with him. Jammeh even appointed him minister of information, a position he held for just 12 days. Njie would accompany Jammeh into exile in Equatorial Guinea, only to return home later.

His association with former Jammeh allies is probably why at some point in the past three years, much of which was spent politicking, it felt like Barrow was taking lessons from the former dictator’s playbook.

During this period, Barrow succeeded in casting aside everyone with ties to the coalition of opposition political parties that brought him to power, except for a few insignificant players.

As the election approached, Barrow perfected his acts. Not only did he take from Jammeh part of his supporters, after a botched coalition deal, he also made effective use of Jammeh’s most powerful too – fanning ethnic division to neutralise his main threat, his former party, the United Democratic Party (UDP) of Mr Darboe.

The irony is that while Jammeh hails from a minority ethnic group, Barrow was attacking his own ethnic group. But, as they say, for him the end justifies the means.

“It’s better to die than to be shamed,” the president, known for his extraordinary oratory skills in local languages, once said, sparking weeks of debate about his supposed dictatorial tendencies.

The UDP had been long painted as a Mandingo party. This is because while its leader is a Mandingo, a vast majority of its supporters also come from the same ethnic group, which constitutes the largest portion of the population – 34 percent.

Jawara, the country’s first president, was a Mandingo too.

When Jammeh decided to contest as a civilian in 1996, some people quickly formed the UDP and positioned Darboe, a lawyer with a record of defending anti-government activists, as their candidate. Jammeh’s only weapon was the ethnic card. And it was bound to work, giving the long time a Mandingo man had ruled the country.

But it wasn’t only the ethnic card that Barrow used to his advantage.

Religion, too, played a major part of his grand scheme, something Jammeh also used, albeit in quite different ways.

The NPP painted Darboe as fighting against Islam because of his supposed association with a minority Muslim sect called Ahmaddis.

Many Gambians, who are mostly Sunnis, hate Ahmaddis. People considered as religious scholars openly endorsed Barrow as a result.

Consequently, many analysts believe that Barrow’s victory is more a protest vote against UDP than an endorsement of the president. The only way they could prevent a UDP victory was by voting for Barrow.

That’s why the candidacy of independent candidate Essa Faal was a concern for Barrow’s supporters. Faal, an equality controversial figure, is a renowned lawyer with international standing. Perhaps his best work at home was serving as the lead counsel (chief investigator) in the just concluded Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC), which looked into Jammeh’s 20-year rule.

Faal angered Jammeh’s supporters with his aggressive interrogation tactics.

A Wolof, Faal was considered a threat to Barrow in Wolof-dominated parts of the country, especially the capital Banjul.

But the incumbent had a plan, as it turned out. Not only did he use the religious card against Faal, painting him as an Ahmaddi, he also attacked him at the expense of the integrity of the TRRC he established.

Faal was the subject of one of Barrow’s campaign speeches close to voting day. The president told his supporters at one rally that he had long suspected Faal of holding political ambitions when he emerged as lead counsel of the TRRC. He accused him of using the process to stage his political career.

According to reports, Barrow agreed not to pursue the outcome of the investigations. The process stalled, amid complaints from the commission of lack of funding, leading to speculation about the intention of the president on its mandate.

When Jammeh disowned an NPP-APRC coalition, the activities of the TRRC suddenly came back to life. The government quickly issued a statement reiterating its commitment to pursuing justice for victims of Jammeh’s rule, in line with the findings of the commission.

Close to election day, the TRRC report was presented to the president.

In the coming days, after celebrations marking his surprise victory, Barrow will quickly realise that the toughest part of his political journey is just beginning.

How he deals with the challenge of his election victory will be interesting to watch.

In the long run, besides questions relating to the socioeconomic situation of the country, outstanding aspects of the 2016 coalition plans are still fresh in the minds of many of those who supported the president.

They include a new constitution, which encompasses several issues that include a presidential term limit and the many draconian laws embedded in it that Jammeh used to stifle civil liberties and restrict the scope of his political opponents.

There is also the thorny question of how to deal with Jammeh.

Barrow will have to consider all these while finding a way of reunifying a country visibly divided along ethnic lines, a situation he largely contributed to.