Dauda Jawara’s People’s Progressive Party guided The Gambia to independence in 1965 and thereafter appeared secure in power. Voters rejected a proposal to establish a republic in that year, but accepted it when Jawara resubmitted the proposal five years later. In 1970, he became executive president, marking the country’s transition from a parliamentary arrangement to a republican constitutional order.

Jawara’s government gradually improved The Gambia’s economic and financial position despite the country’s vulnerability to the Sahel drought. The economy remained principally dependent on groundnuts, whose production the government successfully encouraged. The PPP had initially been Mandinka-based and was accused of advancing Mandinka interests, but Jawara brought non-Mandinka figures into his cabinets and sometimes placed confidence in non-Mandinka or British senior civil servants.

The Gambia maintained close but distinct relations with Senegal. Although most Gambians shared ethnic ties with populations in surrounding Senegal and movement across the border was unrestricted, there was no enthusiasm for merger. A special relationship developed through joint institutions after independence, complemented by a 1965 security agreement. Membership in ECOWAS and the OAU, the Lomé Convention, and access to aid from Arab, communist, and western countries left The Gambia less isolated than its small size and lack of an army might suggest.