United Democratic Party (Gambia)

The United Democratic Party is a political party in The Gambia, founded in 1996 by human rights lawyer Usaino Darbo. As a candidate in the presidential election on October 18, 2001 , he took second place with 32.6% of the vote; He again took second place in the presidential election on September 22, 2006 with 26.7% of the vote. The parliamentary elections of January 17, 2002 were boycotted by the party. In the parliamentary elections of January 25, 2007, the party won four of the 48 seats ^[2] .

After Darbo was imprisoned in April 2016 for his political activities in opposition to the ruling government of Yaya Jamme and his Alliance Party for Patriotic Reorientation and Creation , Adam Barrow , party treasurer, was elected its leader and candidate for the 2016 presidential election . The UCP then became part of an opposition alliance known as the 2016 Coalition, a group of seven political parties, and the Coalition endorsed Barrow as his candidate. Barrow officially resigned from the party to allow him to run as a formally independent candidate, approved by the Coalition. Then Barrow won the election. When Jammé refused to accept the election result, he was forced to leave his post through regional military intervention, and when Barrow took office, Darbo was released from prison.