Phased Reform, Permanent Damage: How Guyana’s Constitution Is Being Held Hostage

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A Response to AG Nandlall views on Electoral Reform

Part 2 of 2

The Constraints That Must Be Named

To achieve genuine constitutional reform in Guyana, the following structural barriers must be surmounted — not managed, not deferred, but confronted:

First: The self-amending trap.

The Constitution can only be meaningfully reformed by the very Parliament that benefits from its current configuration. The PPP/C holds a majority. The National Assembly — over which the ruling People’s Progressive Party has control — will be called upon to reform itself. No ruling party in history has eagerly reformed itself out of advantage. This requires, at minimum, a cross-party constitutional compact, international witnessing, and a referendum mechanism that returns ultimate authority to the people rather than the legislature.

Second: The closed-list party capture problem.

Because Guyanese voters vote for party slates rather than individual candidates, every MP in the National Assembly owes their seat not to a constituency but to a party executive. This fundamentally corrupts the reform dynamic: MPs who vote against the party line on constitutional amendments risk being dropped from future lists. The reform of the electoral system is therefore a prerequisite to the reform of everything else — but it is also the reform the governing party is least likely to initiate.

Third: GECOM’s structural incapacity.

The Carter Center has long recommended that Guyana reform GECOM’s structure to increase its independence, effectiveness, and professionalism, and to reduce the direct influence of Guyana’s two leading political parties. The current appointment formula embeds partisan rivalry into the Commission’s DNA. Any reform of GECOM that does not break that formula at the root — replacing party-aligned appointees with genuinely independent commissioners selected through a transparent, civil society-vetted process — will merely reproduce the problem under a new name.

Fourth: The transparency vacuum.

Meetings of the commissioners are closed to the public and observers, and there is no public record of the agenda, minutes, or votes and decisions taken. This creates a vacuum that generates suspicion and can be filled with disinformation. A reform commission that deliberates in secret is not building public confidence — it is undermining it. Every session must be open, minuted, and published. Every draft recommendation must be released for public comment before finalisation.

Fifth: The oil-wealth distortion.

Strengthening Guyana’s democracy while the nation’s oil wealth booms is not merely an opportunity — it is an existential test. Resource wealth historically accelerates the consolidation of executive power. A government with access to oil revenues has less need for parliamentary approval, less dependence on a diversified tax base, and less accountability to the citizenry. Constitutional reform must therefore include robust natural resource governance provisions — transparent sovereign wealth fund oversight, parliamentary approval of major contracts, and independently audited oil revenue reporting — or else the Constitution, once reformed, will be hollowed out by economic reality within a generation.

The Path Forward: What Alacrity Actually Requires

Moving forward from a constitution under executive duress requires more than goodwill. It requires architecture — institutional, political, and civic — that does not depend on the goodwill of the executive in the first place.

Parliament must be reconvened on a fixed, publicised schedule with constitutional and electoral reform as standing agenda items. No prorogation, no indefinite suspension, no Speaker exercising unchecked discretion to shelve the people’s business. If Article 184(1) enables such abuse, then its amendment must be the first item on the reform agenda, not the last.

The Constitutional Reform Commission must publish, within sixty days, a timetable for completing its mandate, a schedule of national consultations open to the public, and its first periodic report to the National Assembly as required by Article 119A. If the Commission cannot meet that standard, its membership must be reconstituted with a clear mandate and a binding deadline.

The amendment process must include a referendum pathway. Constitutional changes of fundamental importance — the electoral system, GECOM’s structure, the powers of the President, the rights of citizens — should not be decided solely by a Parliament elected under the very rules being changed. The people of Guyana must be the final authors of their own constitutional settlement.

Civil society, the media, and the legal profession must treat the Carter Center’s June 2026 visit not as the government’s opportunity to perform compliance, but as the nation’s opportunity to hold the government accountable before international witnesses. Submissions must be prepared. Failures must be documented. The international community’s attention is finite; when it moves on, the government’s incentive to act moves with it.

Conclusion: The Covenant Cannot Wait

Phased reform is acceptable only if the phases are visible, bounded, and moving toward a definable end. What Guyana currently has is not a phase — it is a holding pattern, maintained at altitude indefinitely, while the democratic infrastructure below continues to deteriorate.

The Constitution is not the government’s document. It is the nation’s covenant. It belongs to the cane-cutter in Berbice, the fisherwoman in Essequibo, the young professional in Georgetown who left the polls in 2020 not knowing whether her vote would count. They are all still waiting. They cannot afford to wait through another election cycle, another round of manifesto promises, another commission without a deadline.

Reform must move with alacrity not because the Carter Center says so, but because the people of Guyana have already paid too high a price in broken trust. Phased reform is acceptable only if it is visibly, and rapidly, moving toward completion. Anything less is not reform at all. It is the slow annexation of democracy by the executive — and the most dangerous feature of that annexation is how unremarkable it has been made to appear.

𝙏𝙝𝙚 592 𝙂𝙪𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙞𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙨 𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙂𝙪𝙮𝙖𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙪𝙩𝙡𝙚𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙘𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙘, 𝙥𝙤𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙧𝙚𝙜𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙖𝙛𝙛𝙖𝙞𝙧𝙨.

Safekeeping or Silence? Ekaa Hrim, the Passport Question, and the Smell of a Cover-Up

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BY: Staff— Writer

𝙏𝙝𝙚 592 𝙂𝙪𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙞𝙖𝙣.   

Ekaa Hrim Quarry’s response to the allegations against it has the unmistakable odor of a cover-up in motion, not a company determined to confront wrongdoing. What began as serious complaints from 38 Indian workers about long hours, poor living conditions, low pay, and the handling of their passports is now being dressed up in the language of reassurance, bureaucratic process, and selective explanation. But the central question remains unanswered: if the passports were handed over voluntarily for safekeeping, why did it take intervention from outside the company to get them back? That is not how ordinary employer-employee “safekeeping” works; that is how pressure gets applied until the optics become too dangerous to ignore.

Even more troubling is the eagerness with which the company appears to be preempting the most sensitive parts of the inquiry. A worker has died. The company says it was a heart attack. Perhaps it was. But in a matter this serious, nobody with any sense of public responsibility should be rushing to wrap a final ribbon around a death that ought to be properly examined by the competent authorities. When a company is under scrutiny for possible exploitation, any attempt to present a cause of death as settled before the investigation is complete raises immediate suspicion. It is not transparency. It is narrative management.

And then there is the political choreography. In cases like this, power rarely announces itself bluntly. It shows up as delay, dilution, soft language, and official faces standing between the public and the truth. The Minister of Labour, in this instance, has been forced into the role of front-facing shield, the public buffer through which the matter is being processed and softened. That in itself should concern the country. If intervention was needed to return passports, then the problem was never administrative housekeeping. It was control. If workers had to complain before action was taken, then the system did not detect the abuse; it responded to pressure after the fact.

This is how these matters are so often buried: not by outright denial alone, but by procedural fog, managed statements, and the quiet hope that public attention will move on before accountability takes root. That cannot be allowed here. The allegations are too grave, the power imbalance too obvious, and the explanations too convenient. A company does not get to invoke “safekeeping” after documents are withheld. It does not get to pronounce on a cause of death as though it were the final medical authority. And it does not get to treat the ministry’s intervention as proof that the matter has been handled. If anything, the intervention proves the opposite: that without outside pressure, the workers’ complaints might have remained exactly where the powerful prefer such complaints to be—buried, diluted, and forgotten.

What is required now is not more performative calm. It is a transparent, independent, and uncompromising inquiry into every allegation raised by these workers. Anything less would confirm what many already suspect: that when the accused have access to power, the system bends first, and explains later.

𝙏𝙝𝙚 592 𝙂𝙪𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙞𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙨 𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙂𝙪𝙮𝙖𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙪𝙩𝙡𝙚𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙘𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙘, 𝙥𝙤𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙧𝙚𝙜𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙖𝙛𝙛𝙖𝙞𝙧𝙨.

The Return of Maximum Pressure: Cuba, Crisis, and the Politics of Timing

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BY: Hem Kumar                               

𝙏𝙝𝙚 592 𝙂𝙪𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙞𝙖𝙣

After two months of global distraction driven by escalating tensions with Iran, the United States has once again pivoted sharply back to Cuba—this time with a sense of urgency that appears less strategic than political.

With midterm elections looming on November 3 and polling trends suggesting a difficult road ahead for Republicans, Washington’s renewed intensity toward Havana raises an unavoidable question: is this foreign policy, or electoral calculus dressed in geopolitical clothing?

At the center of this shift is Secretary of State Marco Rubio, whose longstanding hardline posture on Cuba is now intersecting with a narrowing political window. The logic seems stark—if policy gains are to be extracted from Cuba, they must come now.

What distinguishes this latest phase of pressure is not its intent, but its method. For decades, the United States has relied on sanctions, trade embargoes, and diplomatic isolation to weaken the Cuban state. Yet none of these measures have inflicted the kind of systemic strain now being produced by what can only be described as a de facto fuel blockade.

By threatening punitive tariffs and secondary sanctions against any country or company supplying petroleum to Cuba, Washington has effectively choked off the island’s energy lifeline. In just a matter of months, this strategy has succeeded where decades of embargo failed—triggering cascading failures across transportation, electricity generation, healthcare delivery, and basic food distribution.

The humanitarian implications are no longer abstract. They are immediate and visible: prolonged blackouts, shuttered hospitals, stalled supply chains, and a population increasingly pushed to the brink. This is a level of collective hardship that earlier iterations of US policy, including the original Eisenhower-era embargo—which notably exempted food and medicine—appeared designed to avoid.

That distinction is critical. It underscores how far current policy has departed from even the restrained logic of Cold War containment. What we are witnessing now is not merely economic pressure on a government, but systemic deprivation affecting an entire society.

The contrast with recent history is equally striking. Just a decade ago, the United States and Cuba stood on the threshold of normalization. President Barack Obama’s 2016 visit to Havana symbolized a generational shift, framed explicitly as an effort to “bury the last remnant of the Cold War in the Americas.”

That moment now feels less like a turning point and more like a brief interruption.

Today, Cuba faces a convergence of crises. The depletion of Russian oil shipments—once a temporary buffer—has exposed the fragility of its energy infrastructure. The withdrawal of Sherritt International, following expanded US sanctions targeting entities linked to Cuba’s state-controlled economy, has compounded the collapse. Not only has the country lost a significant portion of its electricity generation capacity, but it has also seen one of its last dependable sources of foreign exchange evaporate overnight.

This is not pressure in isolation; it is pressure layered upon vulnerability.

At the same time, Washington appears to be escalating its legal and psychological campaign. Reports that the US Justice Department may indict former president Raul Castro over the 1996 “Brothers to the Rescue” incident introduce a new dimension—one that blends legal accountability with geopolitical signaling.

Whether such a move is enforceable is almost beside the point. Its primary function may be coercive: to fracture internal power dynamics and accelerate political transition.

This approach bears resemblance to strategies deployed against Venezuela, where legal indictments and sanctions were used in tandem to delegitimize and destabilize leadership. The results there have been, at best, inconclusive and, at worst, deeply destabilizing for the civilian population.
Yet alongside these punitive measures, Washington has also introduced a conditional incentive: a reported US$100 million offer tied to “meaningful reforms,” with the Catholic Church positioned as a potential intermediary.

This dual-track strategy— bun maximum pressure paired with selective engagement—places the Church in a uniquely consequential role. Historically, the Catholic Church in Cuba has functioned as one of the few semi-independent institutions capable of mediating between state and society. Its involvement could lend credibility to reform efforts—or, conversely, expose it to accusations of facilitating external influence.

The Vatican’s response, therefore, may prove pivotal. It is not merely a question of accepting or rejecting financial assistance, but of defining the moral and political boundaries of engagement in a deeply polarized environment.

Ultimately, the current trajectory raises a broader and more uncomfortable question: what is the intended endgame?

If the objective is regime change, history offers little evidence that economic strangulation produces stable or democratic outcomes. If the goal is reform, the tools being deployed risk hardening the very structures they seek to dismantle.
What is clear, however, is that the cost of this strategy is being borne not in the halls of power, but in Cuban homes, hospitals, and streets.

And as the pressure mounts, the line between policy and punishment becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish.

𝙏𝙝𝙚 592 𝙂𝙪𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙞𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙨 𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙂𝙪𝙮𝙖𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙪𝙩𝙡𝙚𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙘𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙘, 𝙥𝙤𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙧𝙚𝙜𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙖𝙛𝙛𝙖𝙞𝙧𝙨.

BETWEEN TWO SUPERPOWERS : GUYANA’S DANGEROUS BALANCING ACT

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Georgetown finds itself at the fulcrum of a geopolitical contest it did not invite — and must now navigate with extraordinary skill

The timing was impossible to ignore.
While President Ali’s administration was exchanging pleasantries and promises with U.S. Undersecretary Helberg in Georgetown last week, Chinese Ambassador Yang Yang was quietly commandeering an entire column in Guyana’s State-owned newspaper — methodically dismantling U.S. Congressman Gabe Evans recent criticisms of Chinese influence in this country.
Two superpowers. One small nation. And a government that appears to be smiling at both while hoping neither notices.

Make no mistake — what Ambassador Yang’s op-ed represents is not merely diplomatic boilerplate. It is a carefully calibrated assertion of China’s irreplaceable footprint in Guyana: thirteen billion dollars in cumulative investment, six regional hospitals, the Demerara River Bridge, 300 medical professionals treating over 1.3 million patients, and 54 years of unbroken diplomatic relationship. That accounting was not published for Guyanese readers. It was published for Washington — a message delivered through Georgetown’s own State media that China is not merely present in Guyana, but embedded, entrenched, and unapologetic about it.

That the Ali government granted that platform is itself the story.
A government fully comfortable in Washington’s embrace does not extend its State media to a Chinese Ambassador directly rebutting a sitting U.S. Congressman. That editorial decision reveals a quiet unease in Castellan Court — an anxiety about being seen to choose sides in a contest rapidly escalating across the entire Global South. Georgetown is not projecting confidence. It is hedging. And Washington, a city that reads diplomatic signals for sport, will have noted it.

Guyana has been catapulted, almost overnight, from a small upper-coast nation most of the world could not locate on a map, to one of the most strategically consequential countries in the Western Hemisphere. Oil changed the economics. But geography — and the great-power scramble it triggered — changed everything else.
This is Pandora’s Box. And it was opened not by Georgetown, but by the barrel beneath the Stabroek Block.


Congressman Evans remarks, whatever their specific intent, were an early signal that Washington is paying close attention to the depth of Chinese penetration in Guyana’s infrastructure, healthcare, and public life. Ambassador Yang’s swift, detailed rebuttal — framed in the warm language of South-South solidarity and mutual benefit — was Beijing’s equally deliberate signal that it has no intention of retreating quietly. Both messages landed in the same week. In the same small country. That is not coincidence. That is competition.
The question now is not whether Guyana must choose between Washington and Beijing. The question is whether Guyana is sophisticated enough to avoid choosing at all — and to extract maximum benefit from both relationships simultaneously.

History offers instructive precedents. Singapore under Lee Kuan Yew masterfully cultivated American security guarantees while deepening Chinese economic engagement, surrendering its sovereignty to neither orbit.

Rwanda has leveraged competing international partnerships to finance internal development largely on its own terms. The small nation need not be the pawn — if its leadership is disciplined, unsentimental, and refuses to be captured by either flag.

Guyana’s extraordinary advantage in this moment is its indispensability to both sides. Washington wants Guyana as a democratic, English-speaking, oil-rich anchor of American influence in a region where China has made alarming inroads. Beijing wants Guyana as living proof that Belt and Road delivers, that South-South cooperation is not neo-colonialism, and that Global South nations choose China freely. Both need Georgetown’s cooperation. Both need Georgetown’s validation.
That is leverage — real leverage, of the kind small nations rarely possess and frequently squander.
But leverage is only valuable when the hand holding it is steady and the mind directing it is clear. Guyana must be prepared to say plainly to Washington: we are a sovereign nation, not a satellite, and our Chinese infrastructure partnerships serve our people’s development — not Beijing’s military ambitions. And to Beijing: your investments are welcome, your medical brigades are appreciated, but Guyana’s democratic institutions, its laws, and its sovereign trajectory are not negotiable concessions in any relationship.

That is not hostility to either power. That is the language of a nation that knows its worth.
Soft diplomacy — the kind that builds genuine relationships across multiple capitals, makes a nation useful to many rather than owned by one, and keeps all doors open without walking through any of them blindly — is not naivety. For a nation of Guyana’s size and surging wealth, it may be the only strategy that truly works.

What Guyana cannot afford is the absence of a doctrine altogether. Waving warmly at American delegations by day while publishing Beijing’s talking points by night, and calling that a foreign policy, is not balance. It is drift. And drift, in the currents now moving through this hemisphere, is how small nations lose their footing entirely.

Ambassador Yang’s column was eloquent. Undersecretary Helberg’s visit was cordial. But between those two events lies a question that will define Guyana’s next generation: In whose world does Guyana intend to live — and on whose terms?

If the answer is our own — and it must be — then the work of building and publicly articulating that posture cannot be deferred another day. Guyana needs a coherent, published foreign policy doctrine. It needs diplomats who speak that doctrine fluently in Beijing, Washington, Brussels, and Brasília alike. And it needs a citizenry informed enough to hold its government accountable to it.
Guyana did not ask to become a theatre of great power competition. But here we are — centre stage, oil-rich, and watched. The nation that navigates this moment with discipline and vision will emerge stronger, wealthier, and genuinely sovereign. The nation that simply reacts — smiling at whoever last knocked on the door — risks becoming exactly what both sides, in their different ways, would prefer it to be.

𝙏𝙝𝙚 592 𝙂𝙪𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙞𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙨 𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙂𝙪𝙮𝙖𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙪𝙩𝙡𝙚𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙘𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙘, 𝙥𝙤𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙧𝙚𝙜𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙖𝙛𝙛𝙖𝙞𝙧𝙨.

The Quiet Rewiring of Power and Purses in the Regions

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The latest round of Regional Executive Officer (REO) appointments should not be viewed as a routine administrative reshuffle.

The latest round of Regional Executive Officer (REO) appointments should not be viewed as a routine administrative reshuffle. It reflects something deeper, more structural, and far more consequential: the quiet reconfiguration of access to state power and, by extension, state resources.

At first glance, the changes may appear procedural—nine new appointees, one retained, a fresh slate to “serve the people.” But in governance, personnel is policy. Who occupies these positions matters not just for administration, but for influence, decision-making, and control over the flow of public funds at the regional level.

REOs are not ceremonial figures. They sit at the intersection of budgeting, procurement, project execution, and oversight. They are, in many respects, the operational gatekeepers of regional development. To change them en masse is to reset the internal architecture through which public resources are managed and distributed.

It is within this context that the concerns raised by Member of Parliament Ganesh Mahipaul take on added weight. The issue is not merely whether individuals are qualified on paper, but whether the process and patterns of their selection inspire confidence in independence, meritocracy, and accountability.

When appointments draw heavily from within government ministries, and when questions arise about personal or familial proximity to political power, it inevitably fuels a perception—fair or not—that these roles are being aligned with political interests rather than insulated from them.
And perception, in governance, is not a trivial matter. It shapes public trust, influences compliance, and determines whether citizens believe that resources are being allocated fairly or funneled through networks of influence.

Guyana is no stranger to this dynamic. Across administrations and decades, there has been a persistent tension between public office as a vehicle for service and public office as a gateway to opportunity—sometimes legitimate, sometimes questionable. The concern is not always blatant wrongdoing; often it is the normalization of systems where access, loyalty, and proximity quietly shape outcomes.

What makes the current moment particularly sensitive is the scale of resources now flowing through the state. With expanding revenues and ambitious development agendas, regional offices are no longer peripheral—they are central nodes in the management of significant financial activity.
That raises a critical question: are these appointments strengthening institutional integrity, or are they consolidating networks of control around the distribution of that wealth?

No evidence has been publicly presented to suggest misconduct by the newly appointed REOs, and it is important to state that clearly. They deserve the opportunity to perform and to demonstrate their commitment to the public good.
But governance is not built on hope alone. It is built on systems that minimize risk, ensure transparency, and withstand scrutiny regardless of who occupies office.

Right now, what is lacking is not just reassurance, but clarity. What criteria guided these selections? What safeguards are in place to prevent conflicts of interest? How will performance be monitored, and by whom? And crucially, how insulated are these officers from political direction when it comes to the allocation of contracts, projects, and resources?

Absent clear answers, the reshuffle risks being interpreted not as renewal, but as redistribution—not necessarily of wealth in the crude sense, but of influence over how and where that wealth flows.
That is where vigilance becomes essential. The role of the opposition, the media, and civil society is not to assume guilt, but to interrogate power. To watch closely. To ask uncomfortable questions early, rather than explanations later.

If these appointments are grounded in merit and integrity, transparency will vindicate them. If not, opacity will expose them.
In the end, the issue is bigger than any single appointee. It is about whether regional governance in Guyana evolves into a system that serves citizens equitably—or one that quietly rewards proximity to power.

That is the test now before us.

BY: Staff— Writer

𝙏𝙝𝙚 592 𝙂𝙪𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙞𝙖𝙣-𝙏𝙧𝙪𝙩𝙝 , 𝘼𝙘𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙗𝙞𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮, 𝙄𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙜𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙄𝙣 𝙂𝙪𝙮𝙖𝙣𝙖 𝘼𝙣𝙙 𝘾𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙗𝙗𝙚𝙖𝙣 𝙋𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙨.— ✦—

Phased Reform, Permanent Damage: How Guyana’s Constitution Is Being Held Hostage

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A Response to AG Nandlall views on Electoral Reform

Part 1 of 2

Attorney General Anil Nandlall can speak of “phases” and commissions all day, but the truth is in plain sight: Guyana’s democratic soul is being steadily eroded by prolonged delays, executive overreach, and the systematic neutering of constitutional institutions. The government’s posture is not one of reform; it is one of strategic delay and gradual consolidation of power. The longer that posture persists, the deeper the damage becomes — not merely institutional, but civilisational. A nation cannot build a durable democracy on a constitution held under duress by the very branch of government that constitution is meant to restrain.

The Architecture of Delay

The Constitutional Reform Commission was established with fanfare, staffed with formidable legal minds, endowed — as commentator Christopher Ram has rightly noted — with a “big fat budget” and the country’s most respected legal minds, including Justice Carl Singh, the Head of the Bar Association, the Attorney-General, Senior Counsel, and prominent attorneys-at-law. By September 2025 — with a general election having just passed — the Commission had produced no periodic report to the National Assembly, no published timetable, no quantified deliverables. Both major parties promised constitutional reform in their manifestos of 2015, repeated the pledge in 2020, and again in 2025.

That is a decade of promises dissolving into what Ram rightly called “a spectacle of delay and inertia” that insults the intelligence of the people.
This is not incompetence. Incompetence is random. What Guyana is witnessing is patterned, predictable, and purposeful. The Commission’s silence mirrors the executive’s comfort. A commission that reports to a Parliament that the executive controls, on a timeline the executive does not publish, is not an instrument of reform — it is an instrument of managed postponement.

The Constitutional Pathology:

A 1980 Document in a 2026 Crisis
To understand the constraints on reform, one must first understand what is being reformed — and why the current occupant of the Office of the President has every structural incentive to resist meaningful change. Guyana’s 1980 Constitution, brought into being under Forbes Burnham through what critics have long described as a rigged referendum, was explicitly designed to centralise power. It centralises power, weakens parliamentary oversight, and denies real agency to the Guyanese people, who vote for political parties rather than individual representatives accountable to constituents. Under this system, party leaders select candidates from closed lists, entrenching cronyism and insulating parliamentarians from public accountability.

That architecture has never been dismantled. What the PPP/C inherited from the PNC was not merely an office — it was a constitutional instrument of dominance. The President, under Article 107, holds all ministerial portfolios until he chooses to distribute them. The Speaker, under Article 184(1), possesses what critics have called excessive, near-dictatorial authority that operates above meaningful constitutional restraint, including the power to delay or obstruct parliamentary processes through the indefinite suspension of sittings. The abuse is compounded by the fact that a sitting Speaker from the ruling party has no institutional incentive to restrain himself. When “indefinite” becomes permanent, as one commentator has noted, it transforms discretion into domination.

This is the constitutional environment in which reform must be achieved: a document that empowers delay, a legislature that can be suspended at will, and a reform commission whose findings must ultimately be accepted by a National Assembly that the ruling party controls with a majority.


What the Carter Center Actually Said — and What the Government Heard

The Carter Center’s final assessment of Guyana’s 2025 elections presents a study in contrasts: technical excellence undermined by systemic failure. While the Center lauded the vote’s execution as the most efficient in its monitoring history, this praise was sharply tempered by a warning that the electoral architecture remains fundamentally flawed.
At the heart of the critique is the “winner-takes-all” model, which the report argues fails to ensure genuine proportional or regional representation. By excluding significant portions of the population from meaningful governance, this system continues to serve as a primary driver of national instability.

The Center’s key recommendation is the depoliticization and reform of GECOM. It urged the Constitutional Reform Commission to resume its work immediately and consider alternative, independent structures for the country’s election management body, noting that the current structure, based on an “outdated” formula, has resulted in a polarised body prone to gridlock and a lack of trust among the broader public and smaller political parties.

Critically, the report also flagged a specific procedural concern — a potential conflict of interest involving the Attorney General, who provided legal advice to the Commission while simultaneously running as a candidate. That is not a footnote. That is a structural integrity problem sitting at the centre of the reform process. The chief legal officer of the State cannot advise a constitutional commission while standing as a partisan candidate seeking office. That Nandlall continues to present himself as the authoritative voice on reform — after that conflict was publicly noted by international observers — speaks to the degree to which the government views criticism as an inconvenience to be managed rather than a standard to be met.

The Carter Center also recommended that the constitutional review process consider Guyana’s electoral system and corresponding methods of delimiting boundaries to ensure that equal suffrage is upheld, noting that the country’s population has changed significantly in the 24 years since the boundaries were last drawn — a change now confirmed by the 2022 national census released in January 2026.

A Carter Center team is scheduled to visit Georgetown in June 2026 to discuss the report and its recommendations with the government and key stakeholders. That visit should be treated not as a courtesy call but as an accountability moment. Civil society must prepare submissions. The media must demand public reporting. And Parliament, if it is in session, must formally receive the Carter Center’s final report as a tabled document for debate.

𝙏𝙝𝙚 592 𝙂𝙪𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙞𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙨 𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙂𝙪𝙮𝙖𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙪𝙩𝙡𝙚𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙘𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙘, 𝙥𝙤𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙧𝙚𝙜𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙖𝙛𝙛𝙖𝙞𝙧𝙨.

Gail Teixeira speaks: Parliament , Diplomats,Regrets.

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BY: GHK LALL

It’s why I have such regard for the Hon Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Lady Gail Texeira.  For every Guyana wake house situation, she has the right sad song: “Now it’s crying time again….”  Seems she has the dirty job of conveying the disappointment of Pres Ali and Vice President Jagdeo to the meddling diplomatic community.  Disappointment, not disgust.  Or wanting to tear into the likes of Excellencies Luca Antonini and Nicole D. Theriot and give them a piece of the PPP headmen mind.  Comrade Gail is now new and improved: “it is regrettable” has tactful diplomatic tinges plastered.  When used twice, it underlines PPP outrage at being caught with its parliamentary pants down.

According to Minister Texeira, all the ambassadors had to do was ask.  Almost a hundred days with the walls and rafters of Guyana’s parliament shrouded in ghostly silence.  Not a word from Excellency Ali, Speaker (what’s his name, again?), or parliamentarian par excellence, Minister Texeira herself, and diplomats helpful to Guyana’s cause get their knuckles wrapped.  I translate “it is regrettable” for Guyanese and the diplomatic community.

First, the good news: doesn’t qualify as “a feral blast.”  I must differ.  It’s tantamount, however, to this: get thy dirty paws off Guyana’s parliamentary affairs.  Or, know thy place, mind thy manners, and stay the hell out of Guyana’s business.  It’s said that no good deed goes unpunished.  Well, there was the enlightened Gail Texeira taking it upon herself (with the Ali-Jagdeo combo backing) to sock it to the ABCEU people who were only trying to move things along.  The PPP Govt didn’t need the help, since June 5th was already settled in PPP land for the reconvening of parliament.  Note the clever arithmetic, folks: after snatching over three months of this parliament’s life away, the crafty PPP seized another two weeks, a dozen more days, of parliament being as quiet as a graveyard for itself.  There’s soundness of vision, a group of clever politicians using their wits to give Guyanese fits.

Speaking for myself, I extend my own regrets to the venerable, increasingly incomprehensible, Gail Texeira, Duchess of Parliamentary Governance in Guyana.  Those who are fragile, shouldn’t be hostile.  The Guyanese people were patient.  The diplomats that mattered were patient.  Reconvening parliament on June 5th (hopefully, this means in 2026) represents more than 100 days of inaction, incompetence, and intransigence.  It is PPP insipidity, despite its 7-seat majority, and indicative of its impotency.  It still fears.  Still has to hide and dodge and disappear for long stretches.  Dr. Ali failed to answer the call of the bell.  Dr. Jagdeo failed to decide on what new job title fits him best.  And, there is Ms. Gail Texeira, who failed to persuade.  But now looms large and casts an awkward shadow, as Guyana parliamentary master maneuverer.  “It’s regrettable.”

Where was the honorable lady before, a veteran of countless local political skirmishes, now a proven hand at articulating silvery outrage at the resident diplomatic community.  The ABCE people are getting impatient.  The PPP is proving to be an unwanted burden that can only be tolerated for so long.  The PPP has to be helped with elections.  It has to be helped with oil (Excellencies Theriot and Helsberg on renegotiation).  Its people helped to count their toes and comb their hair.  But, when helped with a push to get parliament going, there is Gail ‘Stormy Weather’ Texeira reading her version of a riot act to foreign diplomats.

Who helped parliament to get started after the elections?  Diplomats.  Who has to jump in again and move to restart parliament?  Diplomats.  But there is Excellency Texeira telling the world that June 5th was set moons ago.  It’s regrettable that that PPP memo was filed under ‘SHRED, then DISCARD.’  This is governance for the gods.  By whom, please don’t ask.

𝙏𝙝𝙚 592 𝙂𝙪𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙞𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙨 𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙂𝙪𝙮𝙖𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙪𝙩𝙡𝙚𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙘𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙘, 𝙥𝙤𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙧𝙚𝙜𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙖𝙛𝙛𝙖𝙞𝙧𝙨.

“Show the Schedule or Stop the Spin.”

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A RESPONSE TO GAIL TEIXEIRA’S DRIVEL

“𝑷𝒂𝒓𝒍𝒊𝒂𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒚 𝑺𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒅𝒖𝒍𝒆 𝑹𝒆𝒎𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒔 𝑾𝒊𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏 𝑪𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒕𝒖𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒂𝒍 𝑭𝒓𝒂𝒎𝒆𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒌”— GT BUZZ

Spare us the polished talking points and constitutional window dressing—what we are witnessing is not procedural normalcy, it is calculated avoidance of scrutiny.

If everything is above board, then publish the parliamentary schedule. Not selectively, not vaguely, not through press statements—publish it in full. The refusal or reluctance to do so raises a simple question: what exactly is being hidden from the people?

Government business is not a private exercise conducted behind closed doors and dressed up after the fact. It is funded by taxpayers, it is executed in the name of the people, and it must be subjected to continuous parliamentary oversight. That is not optional. That is the foundation of accountable governance.

You cannot boast about budgets, projects, and national development while sidelining the very institution designed to interrogate, approve, and monitor those actions.

The National Assembly is not a ceremonial inconvenience—it is the central pillar of democratic accountability.

Keeping it effectively dormant while claiming “work continues” is nothing short of political evasion.

Let us call this what it is: governance by insulation. A system where decisions are made, money is spent, and policies are rolled out without the consistent, visible, and structured scrutiny of Parliament. That is not strength. That is a dangerous drift toward executive dominance.

And the attempt to dismiss legitimate concern by hiding behind sovereignty arguments is equally disingenuous. Sovereignty does not mean secrecy. It does not mean the executive gets to decide when and how democracy is performed. It certainly does not mean the public must accept silence where transparency is required.

Elections are not a five-year licence to disappear into unchecked authority. Democracy does not begin and end at the ballot box. It lives—or dies—in the daily practice of accountability, debate, and institutional integrity. When those mechanisms are weakened, delayed, or manipulated, the damage is not theoretical—it is real and immediate.

And let us not pretend otherwise: when the lines between party and state blur, when institutions bend to executive convenience, and when Parliament is treated as expendable, the word “capture” is no longer provocative—it is accurate.


The Guyanese people are not naïve. They understand the difference between governance and control. They understand when they are being managed instead of represented.

So again, the demand is simple: show the schedule. Convene the Assembly. Subject government business to the scrutiny it requires.
Anything less is not governance. It is avoidance dressed up as order.
And the country deserves better than that.

Who Polices the Police? America’s Costly Campaign of Global Retribution

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BY: Staff— Writer

𝙏𝙝𝙚 592 𝙂𝙪𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙞𝙖𝙣.       

The arrest of Adys Lastres Morera, a relative of a senior figure in Cuba’s military-linked GAESA conglomerate, is being presented by U.S. authorities as a matter of national security. But strip away the diplomatic language, and a more troubling pattern emerges—one that reflects an increasingly aggressive posture by Washington under Donald Trump, positioning itself as the de facto police force of the world.

Morera, a lawful permanent resident since 2023, now faces removal proceedings not for any publicly substantiated criminal act, but under the broad and elastic justification that her presence “undermines U.S. foreign policy interests.” That phrase should alarm anyone concerned with due process and the rule of law. It signals a shift away from evidence-based enforcement toward politically motivated targeting.

This is not an isolated incident. It is part of a wider doctrine—one that expends billions of dollars pursuing individuals across borders, often in the name of ideological confrontation rather than tangible national benefit.

At a time when Americans themselves are grappling with inflation, economic uncertainty, and strained public resources, such actions raise serious questions about priorities. What exactly is gained by these high-profile detentions? And at what cost?

The irony is stark. While the United States asserts jurisdiction over foreign nationals and foreign-linked entities, it increasingly blurs the line between legitimate law enforcement and geopolitical retribution. The justification often rests on opaque claims of “threats” without transparent evidence, eroding the credibility of institutions that claim to uphold justice.

Meanwhile, the broader consequences are ignored. These policies exacerbate international tensions, complicate diplomatic relations, and deepen economic pressures—both abroad and at home. The costs are not merely financial; they are institutional and moral. Each such action chips away at the principles the United States claims to defend.

And this raises the most uncomfortable question of all: who holds power accountable when it overreaches? If the United States assumes the role of global enforcer, who then enforces the law against the United States—or against leaders who weaponize that power for political ends?

The arrest of Morera may seem like a minor headline in the churn of global news. But it is emblematic of something far larger: a system increasingly driven by retribution over reason, projection over principle, and power over justice.

𝙏𝙝𝙚 592 𝙂𝙪𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙞𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙨 𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙂𝙪𝙮𝙖𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙮 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙪𝙩𝙡𝙚𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙘𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙘, 𝙥𝙤𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡, 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙧𝙚𝙜𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙖𝙡 𝙖𝙛𝙛𝙖𝙞𝙧𝙨.

Guyana Can’t Be a First-Class Airport with a Third-Class Aviation Strategy

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BY: Hem Kumar                                

𝙏𝙝𝙚 592 𝙂𝙪𝙖𝙧𝙙𝙞𝙖𝙣

Guyana’s aviation history is not a relic to be admired—it is a roadmap we are failing to follow.

From its humble beginnings in 1939, when British Guiana Airways stitched together isolated riverine communities with amphibious aircraft, aviation in Guyana was never a luxury. It was a necessity. It connected the hinterland to the coast, enabled medical access, supported commerce, and ultimately became a pillar of national development. By the time Guyana Airways emerged as the national flag carrier in 1966, it was more than an airline—it was a declaration of sovereignty, capability, and ambition.

Today, we boast of having one of the most modern and rapidly expanding airports in the Caribbean and Latin America. But that boast rings hollow.
An airport without a national airline is infrastructure without strategy.

The story of Guyana Airways proves that state-supported aviation is not only viable but essential in a country defined by geography, resource expansion, and uneven development. For decades, the airline connected interior communities like Lethem, Mabaruma, and Kamarang—areas that remain economically critical today, particularly as Guyana’s oil wealth and extractive industries push deeper into the hinterland.
Market forces now demand—not discourage—the return of a national carrier.
Guyana is no longer a small, struggling economy. It is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. Passenger traffic is rising. Business travel is surging. Diaspora links to New York, Toronto, and the Caribbean are stronger than ever.

Tourism is expanding. Cargo demand—particularly for energy, agriculture, and mining—is increasing. Yet, we remain dependent on foreign carriers to move our people, control our pricing, and dictate our connectivity.
That is not a position of strength. It is a structural vulnerability.
Critics will point to the collapse of Guyana Airways in 1999 as a cautionary tale. They are not wrong—but they are incomplete. The airline failed under a very different economic reality: high debt, weak management structures, and a limited market.

None of those conditions define Guyana today. What failed then was not the concept of a national airline—it was its execution.
Modern aviation models offer alternatives that did not exist in the 1990s: public-private partnerships, strategic alliances, code-sharing agreements, and lean fleet operations. A reimagined national carrier does not have to replicate the past. It must be built for the future—efficient, commercially driven, and strategically aligned with national development goals.

The question is no longer whether Guyana can afford a national airline.
The question is whether we can afford not to have one.

Without a national carrier, Guyana forfeits control over critical aspects of its economic expansion—airlift capacity, route development, pricing competitiveness, and emergency response capability. We risk becoming a transit point rather than a hub, a customer rather than a competitor.

A country positioning itself as a regional energy powerhouse cannot outsource its aviation backbone indefinitely.
Reinstating a national airline is not about nostalgia. It is about sovereignty, economic leverage, and strategic foresight. It is about ensuring that the same spirit that once used amphibious aircraft to reach remote communities now drives a modern aviation enterprise capable of connecting Guyana to global markets on its own terms.

We have the demand. We have the infrastructure. We have the economic momentum.

What we need now is the political will.