In the past week, the diplomatic missions in Guyana have called on the authorities to convene parliament quickly to allow for the election of an opposition leader following the general elections held last September.
Since the Sept. 1 elections that gave President Irfaan Ali’s administration a second consecutive term, the house has met only once. This is being nationally viewed as an open attempt to prevent presumptive candidate Azruddin Mohamed, 38, from being elected by his opposition peers as their leader.
Mohamad is the leader-founder of the We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) party, which won 16 of the 65 assembly seats just three months after its formation. He is the presumptive opposition leader. However, authorities have been reluctant to call a sitting of the house. They appear to hope that a current extradition hearing involving Mohamed and his father, Nazar Momahed, will result in his extradition to the US on charges related to gold smuggling and other offenses. The two were indicted in Florida last year. They were also sanctioned by the Treasury Department for international financial crimes in 2024.
In recent days, US Ambassador Nicole Theriot and ambassadors from the European Union and the United Kingdom have all called on the administration to convene parliament, contending that filling such a position is important to constitutional order.
“We therefore call on the speaker of the national assembly, Mr. Manzoor Nadir, to uphold his constitutional responsibility and act in the interest of the nation by facilitating the immediate election of the Leader of the opposition,” the Europeans stated.
Ambassador Theriot told reporters that “I think it’s incredibly important that you have a functioning parliament in any democracy, and in order to have that, you do need a Leader of the opposition. It just makes things work properly. I do think it’s very important for Guyana, as soon as possible, to elect a leader of the opposition.”
The Mohameds were once major financiers of the governing People’s Progressive Party (PPP) and close confidants of Ali and the PPP leadership. Now they are bitter enemies with the PPP. The PPP appears determined to extradite them at the request of the US for allegedly smuggling more than 10,000 kilos of gold to the US and evading more than $50 million in taxes to Guyana, charges they have denied. Local courts have held several hearing sessions on the extradition request as attorneys maneuver to prevent them being sent to the US.
For its part, Win said in a weekend statement that there is little doubt Azruddin’s efforts to be elected are being sabotaged by the administration.
“WIN added that any further delay amounts to a willful obstruction of democratic governance, a misuse of authority, and a direct affront to the constitutional order, and again called on the speaker to act without further delay and put the interests of citizens first. The time for action has long passed. The continued failure to convene parliament and elect a leader of the opposition is not accidental, but a deliberate stalling of the democratic process that denies the people of Guyana the representation and accountability they voted for,” the party said.
President Ali has dismissed the plethora of social media backlash and attacks from political parties as “absolutely ridiculous! The opposition can elect whoever they want as opposition leader so it’s absolutely ridiculous. That’s their business. We have no business in the opposition electing whoever they want as leader of the opposition,” Ali stated.
