As we approach the presidential elections in barely six weeks’ time, it appears that any hopes that the fragmented opposition would come together in a strategic alliance against the APRC hegemony, are fast fading away.
While there appears to be some goodwill from all sides of the opposition divide to field a single presidential candidate, but there appears to be such a huge personality gulf existing between the leadership of the various parties that it is hard to see how it can be bridged within such a short time.
Indeed, while everyone would agree that the Gambian opposition is operating in the most hostile political environment in this part of the continent, but the opposition also appears to be its own worst enemy, with most of the leadership being so intransigent with their personality dogmas and hardly ready to accommodate each others’ viewpoints.
It appears that the opposition is still paying the price of its failure to sustain NADD in the run up to the 2006 presidential elections when the leadership of the UDP and the NRP unceremoniously walked out of the alliance, thus leading to the breakup of the most cohesive opposition alliance ever formed in this country.
There is absolutely no doubt that NADD was the best chance the opposition ever had in defeating Yahya Jammeh at the polls.  
It is quite obvious to anyone who cares for the truth that the more than 40 per cent of the electorate who did not come out to vote in the last presidential elections did so as a protest at the failure of the opposition to remain united against the APRC.
There is absolutely no doubt that if NADD had remained intact, a majority of those people would have voted for the opposition, and there was a high possibility that Yahya Jammeh would have been beaten hands down by the NADD candidate.
What we however saw was the opposition leadership allowing their personality differences to overcome their sense of purpose, failing to realize that they had a common adversary which demanded that they overlooked any petty personality differences for the good of the country.
Any reasonable person would have expected the opposition leadership to have learnt some useful lessons from that calamity which befell them after the demised of NADD and did something in order to make amends in the subsequent elections, but what we instead see is continuation of a wider gulf developing between them, with the different parties drifting further and further apart, thus giving President Jammeh and his APRC more breathing space.
It is indeed foolhardy for any of the opposition parties to think that they can single-handedly put up a formidable challenge to the well-funded APRC election machine in either the presidential or National Assembly elections.
We all saw how the UDP/NRP alliance was humiliated in 2006 after the two parties broke away from NADD, harbouring the erroneous impression that being the ‘largest’ opposition parties, they could handle the APRC on their own.
The poor results they obtained should have been enough lessons to them and everyone else that there is no alternative to opposition unity if they want to put up any credible challenge to the APRC.
It is quite an obvious fact that just like the former autocratic states of Eastern Europe, there is presently hardly any distinction between the APRC and the state, and as such, the regime never hesitates in using state resources and materials in its political campaign.
We have seen for instance how there is hardly any difference between President Jammeh’s annual state-funded ‘Dialogue with the People’ tours and his party’s political campaigns.
We have seen how the APRC had been using government vehicles, the public media as well as several other public facilities while doing everything within their power to deny the opposition access to all those facilities.  
While there is still some slight hope that the ongoing discussions for a strategic opposition alliance could bear some fruit, but, if for whatever reason they allow the momentum to once again dissipate without any such alliance, then, the already frustrated Gambian electorates are likely to ditch them forever.
The result would be yet another low voter turn-out and another ‘landslide’ victory for President Jammeh and his APRC, while the opposition will continue to slide more and more into oblivion and irrelevance.