By: Fatou Krubally
The United Democratic Party (UDP) has issued a scathing statement questioning the government’s decision to send a mobile national ID card registration team to Mauritania, warning that the move could be part of a wider scheme to tamper with the voter register ahead of the 2026 presidential elections.
While the Gambia Immigration Department claims the deployment is to “protect Gambians abroad,” the UDP argues the operation is suspicious given the government’s consistent refusal to allow diaspora voting. The party noted that for years, the Barrow administration has cited lack of resources, logistical difficulties, and constitutional constraints to justify denying Gambians abroad the right to vote.
“Suddenly, this same government can fund an expensive mission involving immigration officers, SIS agents, and Foreign Ministry officials to travel abroad and issue national IDs,” the UDP said in a statement released on Thursday. “If the government can afford this, why can’t it first provide proper IDs to Gambians at home to end fraudulent attestations?”
The UDP believes the real objective is not to protect citizens, but to expand a fraudulent attestation scheme beyond Gambia’s borders, particularly in Mauritania, Senegal, and Guinea-Bissau, and register non-Gambians to vote.
“This is about inflating the voter register with people who can be mobilized to vote for President Barrow,” the party charged, referencing the attestation system widely used during the 2021 elections.
The party also questioned the legal basis for issuing national ID cards outside the country, especially when consular IDs, emergency passports, and birth certificates are already available through embassies.
UDP is now demanding that the National Assembly summon the Minister of Interior and the Director General of Immigration to explain the legal framework, verification process, and cost of the Mauritania operation. The party also called on civil society, the media, and international partners such as ECOWAS and the UN to investigate and monitor what it warns could be “a dangerous precedent for electoral fraud.”
“If the government genuinely cared about Gambians abroad, it would have implemented diaspora voting,” the UDP said. “This shady ID issuance scheme has nothing to do with protection, it reeks of manipulation and fraud.”
