Presidential Adviser Rejects Opposition Criticism on Term Limits, Citing Parties’ Own Leadership Records

By Fatou Sillah

A senior adviser to President Adama Barrow has dismissed criticism from the United Democratic Party over the absence of presidential term limits, arguing that opposition parties have no standing to raise the issue while their own leaders remain unchallenged at the top of their organizations for years.

Saihou Mballow, a presidential adviser and senior member of the ruling National People’s Party, said in an interview that the NPP-led government had twice attempted to introduce term limits through a draft constitution, only to see the proposal rejected by lawmakers in the National Assembly.

“We have tried to bring up the issue of term limits,” Mr. Mballow said. “We tabled a constitution before the National Assembly two times, and it failed, so you cannot blame the president for that.”

Mr. Mballow argued that responsibility for the failure rested with the National Assembly rather than with Mr. Barrow, and suggested that parties pressing the government on the issue should first examine their own internal practices.

He pointed in particular to the U.D.P., whose presidential candidate has run in the country’s last several elections, calling the party’s position on term limits inconsistent with its own record.

“Parties like the U.D.P. cannot tell us about term limits because their current presidential candidate is contesting more than five times—that is a disgrace to democracy,” he said.

He leveled a similar critique at the Gambia Democratic Congress, whose leader, Mama Kandeh, has also run for president multiple times. Mr. Mballow said opposition parties more broadly had failed to develop leadership structures capable of producing new candidates, leaving them reliant on the same individuals election after election.

“Charity begins at home; if they practiced what they are preaching, Gambians would have listened to them,” he said.

Calls for constitutional term limits have remained a central point of contention in Gambian politics in the years since the end of Yahya Jammeh’s 22-year rule, with critics warning that the absence of such limits leaves the door open to the kind of long-term, unchecked power that defined his presidency.