By Fatou Sillah
Essa Mbye Faal, the party leader and secretary general of APP Sobeya, has said President Adama Barrow is likely to lose the 2026 presidential election, arguing that the administration’s policies are out of step with the priorities of Gambians.
Speaking in an interview with West Coast Radio, Mr. Faal said he believed voter sentiment would turn against the incumbent government.
“In this coming election, Barrow is going to go down simply because of the misalignment of his policies with the priorities of the people,” he said.
Citing data he attributed to the CepRass report, Mr. Faal said public dissatisfaction with the country’s economic management was widespread. He claimed that 75 percent of Gambians surveyed rated the government’s handling of the economy as poor.
“If you look at what people are saying about the handling of the economy, 75 percent of Gambians are saying that they are handling the economy very badly,” he said. “It means three-quarters of the population are not happy. How can a government be proud of that record?”
He further stated that 62 percent of respondents expressed dissatisfaction with overall governance, including how the country is managed, while 68 percent reportedly said the government was performing poorly in addressing corruption.
On corruption, Mr. Faal said public perception remained overwhelmingly negative and suggested that citizens did not believe the government was making sufficient progress on the issue.
“Sixty-eight percent of Gambians are saying that Barrow’s government is handling corruption very badly,” he said.
He added that economic hardship was affecting a broad cross-section of citizens, including some government supporters, and predicted that voters would ultimately seek new leadership.
“The Barrow government will go down, but people do not believe me because if you look at every measure, the government is doing very poorly,” he said.
He further claimed that President Barrow had “only eight months left,” adding, “unless the Gambian people vote against their own interests.”
Referring to the 2021 presidential election, Mr. Faal argued that Barrow’s victory had been driven less by enthusiasm for his candidacy than by voter distrust of the opposition at the time.
“Barrow was just a beneficiary of a chance situation in which people did not trust that I would win if they voted for me and did not have confidence in other candidates,” he said. “For that reason, they voted for continuity. But it is not that Barrow is their choice.”
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