Jubilation was in the air as thousands of horn-tooting, flag-waving, red-shirt-clad supporters of Guyana’s president, Irfaan Ali, made their way to a recent rally.
Their party is predicted to easily win Monday’s general election on the back of an oil boom, which has helped transform the country into one of the fastest-growing economies in the world.
But opposition voters say the government’s infrastructure-heavy spending spree has not done enough to address mounting everyday expenses and improve citizens’ quality of life.
Guyana has seen staggering growth in the five years Ali’s People’s Progressive party/Civic (PPP/C) has been in power – thanks to the oil boom that is slated to reach 1.3m barrels per day by the end of 2027. In 2015, huge deposits of crude were discovered off Guyana’s coast, transforming the fortunes of what was once among South America’s poorest countries.
The International Monetary Fund has listed the South American country’s GDP at almost $26bn (US), nearly five times what it was five years ago, and optimism among party supporters is palpable.
Driving through the capital, Georgetown, the transformation is already visible, with widened highways and a towering new four-lane bridge spanning the Demerara River. New schools, state-of-the-art public hospitals, hotels and malls have gone up, with more under construction.
Last year, Ali announced that 100,000 Guyanese dollars (£355) would be paid to any Guyanese citizen over the age of 18 with a valid passport or ID card.
Omadai Persaud, a bus driver, said Ali’s government had been “helping the people and giving us what we need”.
“We have free education, free university … hospitals and all resources,” she said.
Ashton Clement, another PPP/C supporter, said: “I know that if I die tomorrow, my grandchildren and my children could have a good future.”
Ali, 45, has been praised for his charisma and down-to-earth approach to leadership.
But the opposition coalition party, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), has expressed concerns about corruption.
“A lot of our oil money is being wasted on projects that aren’t achieving their objectives,” said the opposition leader, Aubrey Norton, in an interview. “One of the major concerns is that we have been touted as the fastest-growing economy in the world, but a few people are getting rich and the majority of the population is in poverty.”
The PPP/C has denied allegations of corruption, but APNU supporters say most of the population is still not seeing the benefits of Guyana’s newfound wealth.
At a party meeting this week, a grandmother who introduced herself as Miss Joy, said she had “a whole long list” of concerns about the current administration.
“At the moment I don’t see any future for my grandchildren, because they are not able to build a home,” she said, adding that she believed the APNU, which has promised to implement an affordable “rent-to-own” scheme, would finally give her family the chance to own a home.
Another opposition supporter, Judy Marcus said she was backing APNU because she believed in fairness. “Despite the oil, money is not circulating. That is not fairness,” she said.
Matthew, a barber, said the increasing cost of living that has come with Guyana’s oil wealth has not been matched by higher salaries. “Teachers, nurses, police – everybody’s salaries need to be raised,’” he said.
Christopher Ram, an analyst and frequent critic of the government, said that, although the national budget had quadrupled during the oil boom, “there are danger signs”. Businesses are complaining about the lack of availability of foreign currency, he said, “while the poor complain about high cost of living”.
Thanks to a weak opposition and the strategic use of cash grants to voters, the government is going into the elections with “an enormous advantage”, Ram said.
Ram suggested that a wild-card new party, We Invest in Nationhood, might eat into the government’s lead. The party’s candidate, Azruddin Mohamed, is a member of one of Guyana’s wealthiest families, and was sanctioned alongside his father by the US over allegations they defrauded Guyana’s government of tax revenue and bribed public officials. The Mohameds have denied all wrongdoing.
Mohamed has built a large following on social media, but it remains unclear if that will translate into votes.
But Freddie Kissoon, a political analyst and former University of Guyana lecturer, said the PPP/C had successfully used the oil boom to ensure a strong advantage going into the election.
“The incumbent has been able to use the oil to create a satisfactory outcome on the part of those who didn’t have before. Before oil, [Guyana] really didn’t have anything going for it … And then it found something that the western world finds indispensable: oil and gas.”
The war in Ukraine further benefited Guyana, Kissoon said. “Oil has played a huge role in how the politics played out … This election is not as competitive as one may want to think. And that’s because the incumbent has a strategic advantage,” he said.
Guyanese politics has traditionally been seen through a prism of race, with Indo-Guyanese – the country’s largest ethnic group – voting for PPP/C and Afro-Guyanese backing APNU. But that is now changing, according to Kissoon, who said recent local elections, had demonstrated the “evaporation of racial thinking”.
Just under 40% of the country’s population trace their heritage to indentured labourers and other Indians who migrated during British colonial rule, 30% are descended from enslaved Africans, 19.9% are mixed race and 10.5% are Indigenous.
But the country’s young population (Guyana’s median age is 26) had been exposed to changing norms and cultures, and were more inclined to weigh up what other parties have to offer, Kissoon said.
Thandi McAllister, a maritime lawyer who defected from APNU to run for the PPP/C, said: “We all grew up recognising that there [were] Afro-Guyanese and Indo-Guyanese parties. But I think that the electorate has evolved and continues to evolve. And as people become more aware, more educated, more exposed to information, to what is happening across the globe, there is more of a global influence on our thinking.”
McAllister said she started out as a critic of President Ali, but was won over when he was able to fulfil his promises.
Ali said his aim was to “build an economy that is globally competitive, one that will place our country ahead of its time”.
Speaking to the Guardian in Georgetown, he said that – beyond oil – he would be looking to invest in multiple platforms and industries, including AI and new technologies.
“Using the revenue from oil and gas to build wealth, create opportunities, give our people world-class healthcare, world-class education services, build a modern competitive industrial sector, manufacturing sector … that will open up tremendous opportunities in the world of technology,” he said.
Norton, the opposition leader, also stressed the importance of diversifying the economy. “We believe that we have to develop industries outside of oil, so we want to be involved in agro-processing, manufacturing, other areas,” he said. “Oil is not an infinite resource … and if it is finished without us widening the base of the economy, we’re in trouble.”
