State House, Banjul, 7th August 2018
World leading America-based research company, Gallup, has found that 72 percent Gambians, nearly three in four residents, approve of President Adama Barrow’s leadership. An even higher percentage (75%) is also confident in the honesty of the election process under the leadership of President Adama Barrow.
Along with the confidence they have in Barrow, Gambians show signs of hope that their living standards are getting better. Nearly two in three Gambians (65%) said their standard of living is getting better, the highest result among ECOWAS Countries that participated in the 2017 polls. The pioneer public opinion polls in the US, and the world by extension, released their findings on The Gambia on Tuesday, 7th August, 2018 in Washington, DC, US.
“The Gambia sits at a crossroads. In the first year of their president’s leadership, residents exhibit confidence in their new government and the democratic process that put it there,” the poll concluded.
The research organization observed that the government’s ‘’sound fiscal policy such as reducing debt and investing in irrigation and other commercial farming infrastructure in an effort to return farming to a viable backbone of The Gambian economy’’ is indeed paying dividend.
The outcome of the polls, however, suggest that the government must not rests in its laurels, and needs to augment economic improvement to continue to meet the expectations of the public.
The results of this poll are based on face-to-face interviews with 1,000 adults, aged 15 and older, and conducted in The Gambia between December 14 and 26, 2017.
The group, Gallup World Poll, is a global performance-management consulting that tracks the most important issues worldwide, such as food access, employment, leadership performance, and well-being. Since creating the World Poll in 2005, Gallup has conducted studies in more than 160 countries that include 99% of the world’s adult population.
Meanwhile, Freedom House, another US-based research institute, has said that freedom in the Gambia has seen remarkable improvement compared to what used to obtain a few years ago.
“[Gambia’s] political rights rating improved from 6 to 4, and its civil liberties rating improved from 6 to 5 due to the installation of newly elected President Adama Barrow into office in January 2017 and the holding of competitive legislative elections in April. Among other openings associated with the departure of former president Yahya Jammeh, exiled journalists and activists returned, political prisoners were released, ministers declared their assets to an ombudsman, and the press union began work on media-sector reform.”
According to them, the ‘’freedom’’ level in The Gambia has progressed from “Not Free to Partly Free’’
