By: Sandally Sawo
UDP’s former chairman for Sanimentereng Constituency Mr. Lamin Darboe has jumped ship and will be formally welcomed to the NPP later this week, credible sources hinted this medium.
Darboe sometime last week tendered his resignation letter to the UDP a few weeks after the Gambia’s biggest opposition party suffered yet other high-profile defections from its ranks.
In what came as a political thunderbolt that shook the UDP to the core, the party’s former campaign manager waved goodbye to it in a manner that the UDP spokesperson Mr. Almamy Taaladmitted had blindsided the country’s main opposition political party. Former campaign manager Momodou Sabally also went away with his sister, who also had a “sphere of influence” in the UDP.
Meanwhile, this medium has yet to establish whether the NPP has devised a strategy of paralyzing the UDP as it did with the GDC and GMC in the build-up to the last presidential election.
In the lead-up to the last general election, the NPP launched hearts and minds onslaughts on the GDC and GMC and won over their key figures. This strategy of dampening party morale and weakening party structures could be said to have reflected in the poor performance of the GDC in the last polls.
The NPP, according to sources, has set for itself the goal of de-strengthening the UDP before 2026.
The Mayor of Banjul and the UDP NAM for Kombo East have all been linked to an NPP move.
However, the UDP spokesperson hinted in an earlier interview with this reporter that if the late Lamin Waa Juwara’s exit from the UDP could not upset the apple cart, nothing else could, saying the UDP will remain united and strong.
Sources meantime said former constituency chairman Darboe would be formally welcomed to the NPP at a ceremony on Thursday.
Darboe said he resigned from the UDP for reasons beyond his control.