Gambian-Swedish socialist comes home to venture into local politics

Pa F Sanyang, a Sweden-based Gambian politician, has said he is interested in taking up politics in his home country, The Gambia.

Mr Sanyang, in his early 50s, is based in Stockholm where he had served as elected councillor for Sweden’s Social Democratic party for seven years. 

He said he would return home to join the People’s Democratic Organisation for Independence and Socialism (PDOIS), which, he said, has common social virtues with his former party in Europe.

Sanyang said PDOIS already has “a good working relationship” with his former Swedish Social Democratic party.

He explained that he is not interested in initiating a political party that is why he would join and participate in organising and building up PDOIS.

He said he had read the party’s manifesto and would arrange to meet with the leadership of the party to possibly take up membership as one of the party militants.

Sanyang is said to be a native of the Sanyang family of Serekunda, one of the early settlers of the area.  He is the son of the late Baboucarr Sanyang, an ex-staff of the defunct Gambia Public Transport Cooperation (GPTC) and the late ‘Yaayi Compin’ of the Peoples Progressive Party, Fatou Badjie.  His mother is a sister to former minister of education during the first republic, Alagie Kama Badjie.

He has worked for 25 years in Europe where he built his family.