A Guyanese lawmaker currently battling extradition to the U.S. on a string of gold smuggling and financial charges is to be formally elected as the country’s opposition leader on Monday, ending months of embarrassing efforts by authorities to prevent him from occupying the position, officials said.
Azruddin Mohamed’s We Invest in Nationhood Party (WIN) won 16 of the parliamentary seats in general elections last September, making his We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) party the second largest in the assembly, but Speaker Manzoor Nadir has only called parliament once since the governing People’s Progressive Party (PPP) won a second five-year term.
Parliament has, in fact, met only once since its dissolution in July ahead of elections, triggering fears that the government is relishing governing without parliamentary oversight. Monday is also budget day 2026. The document will be read after the election. ALL of WIN’s lawmakers said in a statement this week that they will vote for him as leader.
In the single session after elections, Mohamed and most of the elected lawmakers were sworn in, but as the days went by, the government attracted stinging criticism that it is deliberately delaying calling sessions while hoping that a court would rule that he is to be extradited to the US.
Speaking on a live social media broadcast late Tuesday, Nadir said opposition lawmakers will meet early Monday to elect one of their own as speaker, ending rising societal tensions and threats by WIN of street protests to force the government’s hand.
His announcement came while Nadir was broadcasting live on social media, as a few hundred WIN and other supporters picketed his suburban home, singing hymns and chanting slogans, as police worked to maintain calm and order.
Monday’s parliamentary election date also came just days after Western diplomatic missions and a string of civil society groups had called on authorities to end the charade and allow the democratic process to take its course.
A defiant Nazir now says it is the opposition’s business who leads its legislators.
“If the opposition MPs see it morally right to elect an international fugitive as the country’s opposition leader, then the stain on our parliament and our country rests solely with them. This likelihood has been unprecedented in our Westminster parliamentary system,” he said.
Mohamed, 38, and his father, Nazar Mohamed, have been indicted in Florida’s southern district for allegedly smuggling more than 10,000 kilos of gold to the US without paying an estimated US$50 million in taxes to Guyana. They are also on court dockets due to a string of money laundering, mail, and wire fraud charges filed by the court district. In mid-2024, the Treasury Department sanctioned the father and son, forcing authorities to close all their foreign exchange cambio trading, gold export, and production businesses, as well as others.
A magistrate’s court is currently hearing their extradition trial, but their lawyers say they will appeal to all levels of the Guyana and Caribbean judicial systems to prevent the government from succeeding in getting Azruddin away from the political scene.
Once among the largest financiers of the PPP and very close family friends of the leadership, the two sides are now bitter enemies, with the PPP not in any way hiding its anxiety to have them extradited to the US, WIN says.
