By: Nyima Sillah
Political activist cum Human rights Lawyer,Hassan Martin has observed that just one political party cannot unseat President Adama Barrow’s government or any other government in the Gambia.
In his prediction on the 2026 presidential elections, Martin said the reality in the current Gambia political arena depicts the impossibility of a single party to unseat an incumbent.
“Back in 2016 it has taken a coalition and the realistic issue is that it would be difficult and is going to be a dream to believe that any political party which are less than three hundred thousand militants can win an incumbent,” Mr. Martin told The Voice in an interview yesterday.
He opined that it is a political reality that the country needs to look for a new brand coalition of independence, especially people that can come together to make sure they unseat a government, stressing that any political party that thinks that they can unseat the Barrow government alone must be dreaming.
The political activist pointed out that Gambians must believe what they propose as the third option, adding the third option should be a coalition of stakeholders that have credibility, and have the belief that there is a need for new direction and new dynamics in politics.
“This is what is going to save the country. The whole political culture of one-party dominating people is not sustainable and will fail. The dynamics of politics have changed and people are in the twenty-first century,” Martin stated.
“60% of Gambian voters don’t belong to political parties so some of us being an independent block, movement, and organization have to collaborate with political parties but it has to take something new which we think Gambians in their mind and rights at some point would come to form a new formation that we believe would be a third option coalition that can come together, and work alongside with political parties,” he explained.
He reiterated that anyone who thinks that one party can unseat the Barrow government then that person must be joking, arguing that no political party, be it NPP, UDP, or any other political party, has more than 40% of the votes.
“No party in the Gambia today has a statistic of more than three hundred thousand votes so in reality there must be some kind of new formation which has an independent agenda to save the Gambia in fact to save the Gambia that can help collaborate and work together,” he contended.
