Institute of Commonwealth Studies

Although trades unions had functioned in The Gambia from the 1920s, it was not until the 1950s that the first political parties emerged. Disputes between these parties, which included the Gambia Muslim Congress, the United Party and the Protectorate People's Party (later to become the Peoples' Progressive Party), delayed agreement on the transition to independence until 1965, when Dawda Kairaba Jawara of the PPP became the country's first Prime Minister. Though Gambia had a multi-party electoral system Jawara and the PPP remained in power until the 1994 coup, during which time the country became a republic (1970), experienced its first coup (1981) and formed a confederation with Senegal (Senegambia, 1982-1989). The leader of the second coup, Yahya Jammeh, has since won two presidential elections under a new constitution with his Alliance for Patriotic Re-orientation and Construction (Gambia), although several opposition parties were either banned from or boycotted the polls. The materials here cover the entire period from the end of colonial rule to the Jammeh era.