With The Gambia’s presidential election set for 5 December, the country’s two leading political forces the United Democratic Party and National Peoples Party have turned to overseas supporters in a parallel hunt for money and momentum.
On Saturday, United Democratic Party leader Ousainou Darboe joined senior officials and supporters from Europe, Africa, North America and beyond at The Grove Banqueting Hall in Romford, Essex, for the party’s third diaspora convention.
Organizers billed the gathering as an election convention: part strategy session, part fundraising drive, and a chance for elders who cannot attend rallies at home to take part.
Darboe, the UDP flag-bearer, described diaspora members as among the party’s most passionate backers and said the aim was to resource the campaign. The London meeting follows earlier conventions in Barcelona in 2024 and Seattle in 2025, where the party said it raised more than $111,000. A related GASH chapter fundraiser is scheduled for 3 October in Basel, Switzerland. Officials traveling with Darboe had already framed the UK visit as a fundraising trip as well as an engagement exercise.
Across the Atlantic, the ruling National People’s Party’s USA/Canada chapter staged a Campaign 2026 fundraising reception in the Bronx. Organizers said the New York event was meant to mobilize Gambians in North America behind President Adama Barrow’s re-election bid and a “stronger NPP for a more united and prosperous Gambia.
The Bronx reception comes barely two months after the Seattle chapter’s first major U.S. fundraiser of the cycle, which officials said raised more than $65,000. NPP National President Musa Drammeh was among the party figures present in New York, continuing a diaspora push that party officials present as essential to Campaign 2026.
The timing is not accidental. Barrow, seeking a third term under the 1997 constitution, and Darboe, his former coalition partner and now principal rival, both treat remittances, networks and overseas chapters as campaign assets. The UDP has long drawn organizational strength from supporters abroad; the NPP has moved to match that reach after building its own diaspora structures.
Neither party immediately published a full tally from the latest events. That is typical of these gatherings, which mix speeches, chapter reports and pledges rather than public audited returns.
What is clear is the message both sides want to send: that the December contest will be fought not only in Banjul, Brikama and Basse, but in halls in Essex and the Bronx.
Gambians at home will vote on 5 December.
