Gambia Now Has Three Opposition Coalitions as President Barrow Seeks Third Term
Gambia · Elections
Key Facts
- What happened A third opposition alliance, Team Gambia Grand Coalition 2026, was founded on 12 September 2026 and announced on 18 September.
- Who is behind it Halifa Sallah and Sidia Jatta, veterans of the People’s Democratic Organisation for Independence and Socialism (PDOIS), coordinate it.
- The rival camps Ousainou Darboe leads the UDP’s Gambia First Coalition, while Talib Bensouda is the candidate of Coalition 2026.
- The catch The president is elected in a single round, and a divided opposition lost to President Adama Barrow in 2021.
- What comes next Team Gambia picks its candidate between 17 and 30 October; official nominations run from 3 to 14 November 2026.
Three rival opposition alliances are now courting Gambian voters ahead of the presidential election on 5 December 2026. The newest has not yet chosen its candidate.
The Gambia’s opposition coalition picture has grown more crowded, 75 days before the presidential election on 5 December 2026. A third alliance, Team Gambia Grand Coalition 2026, now lines up against President Adama Barrow, who is seeking a third term.
Its coordinators, the veteran left-wing politicians Halifa Sallah and Sidia Jatta, announced the alliance on Friday 18 September 2026. It was founded at a five-hour national conference on Saturday 12 September, The Alkamba Times reported.
The Gambia, a small West African country almost surrounded by Senegal, has seen what opposition alliances can do. In 2016 a coalition of seven opposition parties and an independent candidate ended 22 years of rule by Yahya Jammeh.
In 2021 the opposition ran divided, and Barrow won a second term with 53.2 percent of the vote. The question now is whether 2026 looks more like 2016 or 2021.
Three camps, one incumbent
The largest opposition force, Ousainou Darboe’s United Democratic Party (UDP), leads an alliance of its own, the Gambia First Coalition. The UDP and seven other parties and movements signed a memorandum creating it on 14 August 2026, The Standard reported.
Darboe, 78, is a human rights lawyer who founded the UDP in 1996 and later served briefly as Barrow’s vice president. He is the alliance’s candidate and has pledged to serve only one five-year term.
The second camp, Coalition 2026, chose Talib Bensouda as its candidate on Saturday 8 August 2026, according to The Point newspaper. Bensouda is mayor of Kanifing, the urban municipality beside the capital, Banjul.
He leads UNITE, a party he built after breaking with the UDP in 2025. Coalition 2026 signed its political alliance agreement at Pencha-mi Hall on Thursday 20 August 2026.
“This coalition means game over for President Adama Barrow,” Bensouda told supporters at the signing, The Standard reported.
How Team Gambia wants to be different
Team Gambia grew out of a consultation that ran from 2 March to 26 August 2026. A preliminary report on 29 August listed 13 political parties, eight movements, eight civil society groups and 22 individuals as participants.
Named founding signatories include PDOIS, the Democratic Party, the Gambia Action Party, the National Democratic Party and the National Unity Party. PDOIS, the People’s Democratic Organisation for Independence and Socialism, is the long-standing left-wing party of Sallah and Jatta.
The coalition’s agreement casts it as a transitional administration that would dissolve after one five-year mandate. Its stated aim is to restore an even multiparty field afterwards.
Candidate forums will tour the country before flagbearers are chosen, a step meant to avoid the shortcomings of 2016. A draft manifesto is due by 30 September 2026, followed by a national tour from 2 to 16 October.
The presidential flagbearer, the alliance’s single candidate, is to be chosen between 17 and 30 October 2026. Some parties’ signatures were still pending, according to The Alkamba Times.
Blurred lines between the camps
The camps are not sealed off from each other. The National Unity Party, led by Lamin J Darboe, appears both on Coalition 2026’s membership list and among Team Gambia’s founding signatories.
At a UDP-led rally at Kotu Quarry on Saturday 19 September 2026, Ousainou Darboe openly courted the National Democratic Party. He told its delegation it could have “no better partner” than the UDP in fighting for the people’s cause, Kerr Fatou reported.
At the same rally, Darboe announced a memorandum with Anda Jubbanti Rewmi, a political movement led by Omar Burr Touray. “This country needs to be rescued,” he told supporters.
Bridges to Bensouda look weaker. Yaya Menteng Sanyang, a UNITE vice chairman and member of the National Assembly, called the chances of a UDP-UNITE alliance “very slim.”
“It is about the flag-bearer,” he said on The Brunch, a Kerr Fatou programme, in remarks published on 21 September 2026. He argued that someone who had lost five consecutive elections “should have given a chance to younger people.”
What happens next
The Independent Electoral Commission, which runs Gambian elections, said it would issue nomination forms from Monday 21 September 2026. Formal nominations run from 3 to 14 November 2026, its chairman Joseph Colley announced.
That timetable matters for Team Gambia. Its candidate is due by 30 October, just two weeks before nominations close on 14 November.
Gambian presidents are elected in a single round, so the candidate with the most votes wins outright. Barrow won in 2016 with 43.3 percent, against 39.6 percent for Jammeh and 17.1 percent for Mama Kandeh, who ran separately.
Five years later, opposition coalition talks collapsed over leadership disputes and a promised three-year transition. That account comes from FactSpace West Africa, a regional fact-checking group.
Barrow, who by then had founded his own National People’s Party, beat Darboe, who took 27.7 percent. For now, the Gambia opposition coalition effort has produced three camps courting the same voters.
More: Africa coverage, every day from The Rio Times.
When is the Gambia’s next presidential election?
The vote is on 5 December 2026. The Independent Electoral Commission will take candidate nominations from 3 to 14 November 2026. President Adama Barrow is seeking a third term.
What is the Team Gambia Grand Coalition 2026?
It is an opposition alliance founded on 12 September 2026 after a consultation that began in March. Halifa Sallah and Sidia Jatta coordinate it, and it plans to choose its candidate between 17 and 30 October.
Who are the other opposition candidates?
Ousainou Darboe of the United Democratic Party leads the Gambia First Coalition. Talib Bensouda, mayor of Kanifing and leader of UNITE, is the candidate of Coalition 2026.
Why do coalitions matter so much in Gambian politics?
The president is elected in a single round. A coalition of seven opposition parties beat Yahya Jammeh in 2016, but in 2021 no Gambia opposition coalition formed and a divided field lost to Barrow.
Sources: The Alkamba Times on the Team Gambia launch, Foroyaa on the Team Gambia consultation report, The Standard on the Gambia First Coalition, The Point on Bensouda’s selection, The Standard on the Coalition 2026 agreement, Kerr Fatou on the Kotu Quarry rally, Kerr Fatou on the Anda Jubbanti Rewmi agreement, Kerr Fatou on UNITE and the UDP, The Standard on the nomination calendar, FactSpace West Africa on the 2016 and 2021 coalitions
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