United Democratic Party (The Gambia)

The United Democratic Party (abbr. UDP) is a political party in the Gambia, founded in 1996 by 3 political parties (the then-banned PPP, NCP and GPP) and choose the human rights lawyer, freedom fighter, and "Gambian Mandela" ANM Ousainou Darboe to be the party leader and Secretary General. As a candidate in the presidential election of 18 October 2001, he came second with 32.6% of the popular vote; he took second place again in the 22 September 2006 presidential election with 26.7% of the vote. The 17 January 2002 parliamentary election was boycotted by the party. In the 25 January 2007 parliamentary election, the party won four out of 48 seats.[2]

United Democratic Party
Abbreviation	UDP
Leader	Ousainou Darboe
Founded	1996
Ideology	Social liberalism Constitutionalism Liberal democracy
Political position	Centre[1] to Centre-left
International affiliation	Socialist International (consultative)
National Assembly	31 / 58
Website
www.udpthegambia.com
Politics of Gambia Political parties Elections

After Darboe was jailed in April 2016 for his political activities in opposition to the ruling government of Yahyah Jammeh[3] and his Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction party, the previous UDP treasurer Adama Barrow was selected as its leader and candidate for the 2016 presidential election. The UDP then became part of the opposition alliance known as Coalition 2016, a group of seven political parties, and the Coalition endorsed Barrow as its candidate. Barrow officially resigned from the party to allow him to run as a formally independent candidate endorsed by the Coalition. Barrow then won the election in a surprise victory. When Jammeh refused to accept the election result, he was forced from office by a regional military intervention, and when Barrow took office, Darboe was released from prison.

Electoral history

Presidential elections

Election	Party candidate	Votes	%	Result
1996	Ousainou Darboe	141,387	35.84%	Lost N
2001		149,448	32.59%	Lost N
2006		104,808	26.7%	Lost N
2011		114,177	17.4%	Lost N
2016	Adama Barrow	227,708	43.3%	Elected Y

National Assembly elections

Election	Votes	%	Seats	+/–	Position	Government
1997	104,568	33.97%	7 / 49	7	2nd	Opposition
2002	Boycotted		0 / 53	7		Opposition
2007	57,545	21.8%	4 / 53	4	2nd	Opposition
2012	Boycotted		0 / 53	4		Opposition
2017	142,146	37.47	31 / 58	31	1st	UDP majority

References

1. Derbyshire, J. Denis; Derbyshire, Ian (2016). Encyclopedia of World Political Systems. Routledge. p. 112. ISBN 9781317471561. Retrieved 14 December 2019.
2. Elections in the Gambia, African Elections Database.
3. "Gambia opposition leader jailed". BBC News. 21 July 2016.