By Alhaji Kemo Conteh
No one denies that few political parties in The Gambia have impacted the shape and direction of the country’s democratic history as profoundly as the United Democratic Party (UDP).
Since its formation in 1996, the UDP has endured political repression, imprisonment of its members, restrictions on political activity, and the loss of prominent figures during the struggle for democratic reform.
The party played a central role in mobilising resistance to authoritarian rule and became one of the principal forces behind the democratic transition that culminated in the change of government in 2017.
That legacy commands respect. Yet history also presents the UDP with one of the greatest strategic dilemmas confronting opposition parties in mature democracies: how to evolve from being the nation’s foremost critic into becoming the nation’s most convincing governing alternative.
For nearly three decades, the UDP fed on, and now have perfected the politics of accountability.
It has consistently exposed alleged government failures, challenged critical public policy decisions through the courts, boldly and unapologetically questioned corruption in government, highlighted administrative inefficiencies, and incompetencies, and amplified public despair, anger and frustration over the cost of living, youth unemployment, poor public service delivery, and governance.
These functions are not only legitimate but indispensable for an opposition party in a constitutional democracy.
In practice, however, the fabric of democratic politics embeds an important but rarely visible and hardly comprehensible paradox.
Democratic governments, unlike dictatorships, almost always possess the ability and flexibility to learn and adjust.
Sustained public criticism often compels incumbents to improve their performance.
Government institutions become more cautious, public procurement procedures more tightened, public communication and awareness raising strengthened, project implementation accelerated, political messaging recalibrated, ministers get replaced or get more closely supervised and guided from State House, and public policy gets reviewed, and revised.
In effect, the opposition’s scrutiny can unintentionally contribute to strengthening the grip on power of the very government it’s fighting so hard to replace.
This is what may be called the accountability paradox.
The more effective an opposition becomes at exposing weaknesses of the government, the greater the incentive for the government to correct those weaknesses.
And if those corrections are visible as they have been apparently to Gambian voters, the electoral urgency for change always gets diminished on voting day.
The challenge facing the UDP, therefore, is no longer whether it can hold President Barrow and his government accountable. Its long history and political track record demonstrates clearly that it can, and indeed it has held even President Yahya Jammeh accountable.
The more fundamental question that still lingers however is whether Gambians still perceive the UDP as a government-in-waiting rather than just primarily an opposition movement, specialized as a fierce bulldog watching over the excesses of the President and government.
The lesson here is that in today’s Gambia, with the level of freedom, democracy and openness, voters will hardly decide solely by opposition dissatisfaction with the random lapses of the incumbent. Gambian society is much more complex and sophisticated now, and voters are more likely to seek comparative confidence. On December 5th day, they will be asking not only whether the President has performed well enough in the past 5-10 years but also whether the claimed alternative is seen to be prepared enough to govern the country better.
This distinction is critical.
In theory, the UDP’s style intensive political messaging centred overwhelmingly on exposing the shortcomings of the President and government can mobilise and strengthen the resolve of die-hard supporters, but by human nature, undecided voters may often be seeking something more visible and more tangible.
They want clearer and more compelling evidence of administrative incompetence, poor economic strategy, institutional immaturity, and poor or distorted national cohesion. They want to understand not merely why the current government should leave office, but more convincingly, why the claimed alternative deserves to enter it.
Added on all this is the fact that the Gambian political environment itself is evolving fast.
A large youthful electorate, expanding digital media, rising expectations for jobs and entrepreneurship, increasing urbanisation, and a more informed citizenry have transformed the face of political competition in the country. Younger voters are often less influenced by historical loyalties than by practical questions about opportunity, education, technology, governance, and economic mobility.
In this era of unprecedented social media awareness and policy enabled conscious decision making, the UDP’s future in Gambian politics may now depend less on the usual intensified historical narratives of heroism and personal sacrifices in the days of the dictatorship, and the all familiar lines of consistent and intentional criticism of President Barrow and his government, and more on evolved strategies that connect the party widely with the increasing youth voter base, and rejuvenating its political identity as a plausible government in waiting.
Clearly there’s no time from now to polling day for the party to craft and deliver a winning campaign strategy on this.
This suggests simply that the UDP should endeavor more to complement accountability politics with an equally compelling narrative of national renewal.
The author is the founder and senior partner of Governance and Development Management Services (GDMS).