By Seedy Jobe
The spokesperson for the Unite Movement for Change (UMC), Kemo Bojang, said on Thursday that The Gambia’s 2026 presidential election would be a decisive moment for the country, describing it as a referendum on progress and urging opposition parties to unite ahead of the vote.
Speaking on Star TV’s Talk to the Nation program, Mr. Bojang said the election would determine whether the country moves forward or slips backward, placing responsibility squarely on voters.
“What I believe is that the 2026 election is a defining moment for the country,” he said. “It is a vote for progress or a vote for regression. It is Gambians who can change the reality that they are facing.”
Mr. Bojang argued that the nation is on the wrong trajectory and called for a fundamental shift in governance, not merely a change of leadership.
“We are at a stage where we must take a bold step to change and redirect our country,” he said. “But it has to be on a level playing field. We must have everything in place to give the opportunity to all political parties to flourish and show what they can do. When you look at the country today, it is in a dire state, and it needs a change—not just a change in personality, but a change in politics.”
He also cautioned against repeating what he described as the shortcomings of the 2016 opposition coalition, which successfully unseated the longtime former president Yahya Jammeh but struggled to establish a coherent governing framework afterward.
“In as much as we want change, it needs to be changed based on value,” Mr. Bojang said. “We also don’t want what happened in 2016 to happen again.”
Reflecting on that transition, he said the coalition had focused primarily on removing the previous government without fully preparing for what would follow.
“So in 2016, personally, I believe that we had a plan, but it was not a complete plan. We had a plan of changing the government, but what happens after the government changes? We really did not have that plan in place. If you look at it, it took a while before the coalition government could even set up its cabinet; it was almost two to three months,” he noted.
Mr. Bojang said UMC was prepared to collaborate with other opposition groups and had already begun outreach efforts.
“As for us at UNITE, we are ready to work with all opposition parties,” he said. “We have started reaching out to almost every political party. No political party is our enemy.”
Instead, he said, the movement’s focus was on addressing corruption, hunger, and crime.
“Our enemy is corruption, hunger, and crime,” Mr. Bojang added. “We are ready to work with any political party, and we have a candidate who can unite the country, unite the people, and usher in the change we want.”
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