During his address to the nation on Saturday 20th May 2023, President Adama Barrow thanked both Gambians and the media for a peaceful election

I congratulate The Gambian people for participating in this mayoral and chairperson’s elections I am very happy with the process I think it was transparent and I think the Gambian people have spoken loud and as a country we should all respect that. This is the last election of the cycle of elections. I seize the opportunity to congratulate the winners and the losers, for me it’s not a loser in this because we are all Gambians and we all want to develop this country. So I think all of us are winners. But one advice is we should now come together forget about our differences, forget about our parties and come together and work for this country. If you are elected it’s a question of trust and the trust is the people want you to contribute and work for them and change their lives, impact in their lives. I think that is the main purpose of the elections that’s why people are elected in office.

As president and head of state, it is my responsibility to make sure that we maintain peace and stability, but I cannot do it alone. I’m calling all Gambians to come and join me so that we work together develop this country, maintain peace and stability. I think it is proven beyond any reasonable doubt that Gambia our democracy is moving on and we are building a strong foundation of democracy going forward. Why I mention that is because all these elections we are very peaceful from the process of campaign up to election’s day up to the final results, all were really very peaceful and that’s what we are praying for so that we organize a very peaceful election in our country. I think Africa now can use Gambia as example that our democracy is maturing. But we still have a room to improve our democracy, we all learn from our mistakes moving forward, but I think overall I am very happy with the entire process and I thank the Gambian people and I thank political party leaders for participating in these elections.

As Gambians we fulfil this electoral cycle in the entire process. I also thank the IEC for being really committed and work very hard to make sure elections are conducted in this country peacefully. We thank the government also for providing the funds for us to organise these very important elections. On that note, I thank the media, I thank the Gambian people. But I still encourage Gambians to make sure they take all these elections seriously, because we will be organising further elections again in other cycle. But the turnout in the presidential elections was about 89% and I think this time it is really on the low side, we are still not very satisfied. People are coming to make a decision for people to represent them in office, so we call on all Gambians to make sure we take elections seriously next time and I thank everybody for their contribution. Thank you

By Salieu Njie