Guyana’s election
From a forgotten country to an 11bn barrel petrostate
President Irfaan Ali leads a state which will soon produce more oil per inhabitant than anywhere else
Photograph: APElections involving a few hundred thousand voters do not normally attract much attention.
But when the former British colony of Guyana went to the polls on September 1st, it mattered: some 450,000 voters decided who will lead one of the world’s fastest-growing economies over the next five years.
The result, declared on September 6th after a snail-paced count, followed by a recount, was a clear win and second term for the incumbent president, Irfaan Ali (pictured below).
His ruling People’s Progressive Party (PPP) increased its majority in the legislature, securing 36 of the 65 seats.
In his re-inauguration speech, Mr Ali assured supporters that his second term would be the “most consequential” period in Guyana’s history.
The barrels vested in mePhotograph: Getty ImagesHe may well be right.
The Guyanese state is beginning to receive a huge income from a consortium led by ExxonMobil, an American oil firm, thanks to a series of massive discoveries 190km (120 miles) off its Atlantic coast.
The first of an estimated 11bn recoverable barrels arrived onshore in 2019.
The nation of around 830,000, which in the early 2000s was one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere, is now on track to pump more oil per inhabitant than anywhere else.
Its GDP has quintupled in five years, according to the IMF.
That change can be hard to see.
Much of central Georgetown, the capital, remains a maze of ramshackle wooden houses.
After every rainstorm, a whiff of sewage rises from irrigation channels which date from the colonial era (Guyana gained its independence from Britain in 1966).
Power cuts, especially outside the capital, are common.
“No real money has come to the people yet,” complains Johnny, a trader in the bustling Stabroek market.
He quips that the ruling party should be renamed the “People’s Persecution Party”.
The government response is that hard work comes before handouts, mostly building infrastructure.
A vast new bridge, built by a Chinese construction company over the Demerara river on the outskirts of Georgetown, is almost finished.
The road system is being upgraded, with 61km of highway built in the past four years.
Work has begun to pave “The Trail”, the red-dirt track that runs for over 450km to connect Guyana with Brazil.
“They are doing OK.
Rome was not built in a day,” says Franklyn, a PPP supporter.
And the real windfall is yet to come.
Oil revenues are expected to soar in Mr Ali’s second term as upfront costs are paid off and more money goes to the state.
“There will be a seismic shift in the fund flows,” says Sasenarine Singh, Guyana’s ambassador to Belgium.
Total government income from oil is expected to reach about $2.5bn this year and $10bn by 2030, $20,000 per voter.
Mr Singh hopes this wealth will lift “all of our people out of poverty”.
That will happen only if Guyana uses its status as a latecomer to the petrostate club to learn from the mistakes of others.
Many were struck by the “resource curse”, where economic growth eventually slumps for a variety of reasons, including governments squandering and stealing the easy money.
It is a positive sign, then, that Guyana has sought advice from Norway on how to handle its wealth, and set up a sovereign wealth fund to do so.
The fund is worth $3.6bn and is growing by tens of millions a month.
One stated goal for the reserve is to ensure that “volatility in natural resource revenues does not lead to volatile public spending”.
Its managers will have raucous Guyanese politics to contend with.
The main opposition party, the PNCR, found itself overtaken by WIN, a party established only in June.
It is led by Azruddin Mohamed, a 36-year-old heir to a gold-trading dynasty.
The United States has placed sanctions on Mr Mohamed for alleged tax evasion, corruption and gold-smuggling.
He presents himself as a Robin Hood figure, sometimes using his private funds to help the needy.
“He is rich, but he used his richness to help us,” said Celia William, 51, an enthused supporter at his closing pre-election rally.
With 16 seats in parliament, Mr Mohamed now leads the official opposition.
This may complicate the legislative body’s relations with the United States, although American officials have said they hope to find “a way around” the issue.
The extraordinary success of WIN throws up another hurdle.
Guyanese politics have historically been divided along racial lines.
The PPP’s support comes mainly from the Indian-Guyanese community, while PNCR voters are mostly of Afro-Guyanese descent.
That both the president and the leader of the opposition will be of Indian descent for the first time might lead some Afro-Guyanese to feel excluded.
The bully next door
Another complication could come from neighbouring Venezuela.
It claims much of Guyanese territory as its own, dating from a border dispute which Guyana says was settled over a century ago.
The unpopular regime of Nicolás Maduro has been whipping up domestic support for the issue in recent years.
Since 2023 it has included the disputed area as if it were a Venezuelan state on official maps.
In May it bumped the propaganda up another notch, asking Venezuelan voters to elect a governor for the territory over which it has no control.
The United States firmly backs Guyana on the issue.
Presumably to emphasise that, it flew two military jets over Mr Ali’s inauguration.
Once known as the “forgotten country” of South America, Guyana’s years of obscurity are certainly over.
0 comments:
Publicar un comentario