On Monday, September 1, 2025, thousands of Guyanese voters cast their ballots in what many have called the most consequential election in the country’s history. With the promise of $10 billion in annual revenue from offshore oil and gas production at stake, the outcome will determine not only the nation’s next leader but also who will control and manage Guyana’s rapidly expanding oil wealth. The world has been watching closely, as the small South American nation—once dependent on gold, sugar, rice, bauxite, and timber—has transformed into the fastest-growing economy on the planet, according to the World Bank.
The stakes have never been higher. Guyana now produces nearly 900,000 barrels of oil daily, and ExxonMobil, which leads an international consortium, has applications pending for four more oil fields. The state budget has quadrupled since 2019, reaching $6.7 billion in 2025. Yet, despite this windfall, a 2024 Inter-American Development Bank report found that 58 percent of Guyanese still live in poverty. As voters headed to the polls, many were asking: Who will finally ensure that oil riches benefit all citizens?
Six parties appeared on the ballot, but the real contest, most agree, was a three-way race. The incumbent, 45-year-old President Irfaan Ali, leads the Indo-dominated People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C). Ali, an urban planner by training, is seeking a second term after his 2020 victory. His main rival, Aubrey Norton, a 68-year-old political scientist, heads the Afro-supported A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR). The third major contender is Azruddin Mohamed, a U.S.-sanctioned billionaire businessman who founded the mixed-race party We Invest In Nationhood (WIN) just three months before the election.
Ali, addressing supporters at a jubilant coastal rally the weekend before the vote, pleaded for another five years. “We ask you to trust us once more to deliver greater, better, faster and more efficiently,” he declared, promising, “We have the experience, and you can trust us to lead you into the bright prosperous future ahead of us.” According to the Associated Press, Ali’s party has been credited with presiding over unprecedented economic growth, with gross domestic product increases averaging around 15% annually for the past six years. But not everyone is convinced the boom has reached ordinary people.
Norton and his coalition have repeatedly accused Ali’s government of corruption, nepotism, harassment of opposition voices, and, most crucially, mismanagement of oil revenues. “Our aim is to restore decency in Guyana, to restore law and order, and to lift the people of Guyana out of poverty. We want to build a society that truly serves its people and ensures that every Guyanese benefits from our nation’s oil wealth,” Norton told a massive final rally, as reported by the Associated Press. He cast his ballot early Monday, telling reporters, “Bar any irregularities, I am sure to emerge victorious.” Norton went further, naming what he called “three great enemies” facing Guyana: “One, Venezuela. Two, the PPP (ruling party). And three, poverty. We will rid this society of all our enemies.”
For many voters, the issue was personal. Evelyn Crawford, a 75-year-old retiree, told the Associated Press that the state pension of about $200 a month was simply not enough in a country flush with oil money. “What they give us is way not enough. I would like to see that people are lifted out of poverty,” she said after casting her vote. Mary Welchman, a 48-year-old nurse, echoed those sentiments to AFP: “We need 100 percent change in our country. So we are voting for a change.”
Meanwhile, the emergence of Azruddin Mohamed’s WIN party has injected a new dynamic into Guyana’s political landscape. Mohamed, whose family is among the country’s wealthiest, was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department last year for alleged involvement in public corruption—a charge he denies. The U.S. government has expressed “deep concern” over Mohamed’s presidential aspirations, with Ambassador Nicole Theriot stating, “We would have to make sure that we didn’t work with him specifically,” and warning that U.S. companies might avoid doing business with Guyana if he were to win. Despite this, Mohamed’s reputation as a self-made billionaire has attracted younger and first-time voters. DeLinda Henry, an Indigenous mother of four from the Mazaruni Region, told the Associated Press, “It is time to try something else other than the PPP and the APNU. I am supporting WIN because Mr. Mohamed does not need to steal any money. ...He is a billionaire and has lots of his own.”
Beyond the battle for the presidency, all six parties were also vying for seats in the 65-member Parliament, hoping to shape how billions in oil revenues are spent. The election was not without drama. On Sunday, August 31, members of Guyana’s election commission, escorted by police and soldiers, came under fire while traveling on a river along the border with Venezuela. No one was injured and election materials were unharmed, but Guyanese officials blamed Venezuela for the gunfire. Venezuela, which claims two-thirds of Guyana’s territory—including the oil-rich Essequibo region—denied the accusation, with Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez calling the claims “intentionally provocative.”
The Essequibo region, accounting for two-thirds of Guyana’s territory, has been administered by Guyana for over a century but remains at the heart of a heated territorial dispute. Tensions have escalated since ExxonMobil’s discovery of massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago. In response to security concerns, President Ali welcomed the deployment of U.S. warships to the Caribbean near Venezuela’s coast, telling AFP that such actions were “anything to eliminate any threat to our security.”
International observers from The Carter Center, the Organization of American States, and Caricom were on the ground to monitor the election. The Carter Center, in a pre-election statement, criticized the size of Guyana’s voter list—757,000 registered voters in a country of just under 800,000 inhabitants—and the failure to release the 2022 population census, calling it a “regrettable lapse” that “obscures public understanding of basic population demographics and their potential relation to the size of the voter list.”
Polls opened at 6:00am and ran for 12 hours, with results expected by Thursday, September 4. Voting in Guyana has traditionally followed ethnic lines, with Indo-Guyanese supporting the PPP/C and Afro-Guyanese backing the PNCR. But this year, the presence of a third-party candidate and widespread dissatisfaction with the status quo have added unpredictability to the outcome.
Guyana’s transformation from a quiet agricultural nation to an oil powerhouse has brought both hope and anxiety. The rapid pace of economic growth—43.6% in 2024, the highest in Latin America—has not yet translated into broad-based prosperity. Ninety-five percent of Guyana’s territory is covered by tropical rainforest, and logistical challenges abound. Still, for most voters, the question remains the same: Will the country’s newfound riches finally lift all boats, or will old patterns of inequality persist?
As Guyana awaits the final results, the world watches to see if this election will mark a turning point—one where oil wealth is finally harnessed for the benefit of all, or just another missed opportunity in the shadow of geopolitical tension and domestic discontent.