Warning on implications if sanctioned Azruddin Mohamed enters Parliament: “I was stating facts… US has no interest in interfering in Guyana elections” – US Ambassador

United States (US) Ambassador to Guyana Nicole Theriot has expressed her disappointment over suggestions in some circles that she and the US are attempting to interfere in Guyana’s electoral process.
The ambassador had faced criticism in some quarters after warning that US-Guyana relations could be affected if an individual sanctioned by the US Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) were to enter Parliament.

However, she told reporters on the side-lines of an event on Wednesday morning that she was “simply stating the facts” when she said last month that it would be “problematic” if US-sanctioned Guyanese businessman Azruddin Mohamed, who is contesting the September 1 elections, were to enter parliament.
“I was a little upset by that characterisation simply because I was stating facts,” Ambassador Theriot stated on Wednesday in response to a question about the criticism against her.
She explained that, “I was asked what being OFAC-sanctioned meant in terms of the US Government being able to work with an individual, and I simply gave the facts that have occurred in other countries, where OFAC-sanctioned individuals had been members of the Government, and how the US Government had to adjust how we worked with that Government.”

No electoral interference
Ambassador Theriot went on to make it clear that neither she nor the US has any intention of interfering with Guyana’s upcoming elections.
“We have absolutely no interest in interfering in your elections. I was asked a question, and I gave the facts as I understand them, as they are published on our Department of Treasury website. I have no interest or intention of interfering in the Government of Guyana’s elections. This is a sovereign country; you run your elections as you see fit… How you run your elections is entirely up to you,” the US Ambassador added.
In fact, the diplomat pointed out that the US involvement in Guyana is merely limited to electoral observation work and election security training – the latter being a direct request from the Guyana Police Force.
“At this moment, we’re sending quite a few supervisory police officers to the New York Police Academy to be provided with training on election security, to include crowd control and how to handle any sort of civil unrest that may arise. We also have a team from the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Department coming in on August 18 to do training with both the supervisory and the line police officers, the guys who are out on the street, to do training with them on exactly the same thing – election security, crowd control, etc. So, we’re very proud to be able to contribute that,” she stated.
In 2024, OFAC sanctioned Nazar Mohamed and his son, Azruddin Mohamed, as well as several of their companies. The sanctions are related to the evasion of taxes on gold exports, noting that between 2019 and 2023, Mohamed’s Enterprise omitted more than 10 thousand kilograms (kg) of gold from import and export declarations and avoided paying more than US$50 million in duty taxes to the Government of Guyana.
Azruddin Mohamed has since launched a political party, called We Invest in Nationhood (WIN), and he is running as the presidential candidate. His party has been approved by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to contest the upcoming General and Regional elections on September 1.

No association
In a July 23 interview with reporters, Ambassador Theriot had cautioned that if the sanctioned Mohamed were to enter parliament, then this could have implications for both Government-to-Government relations and private sector engagement between the two countries.
“When you see an OFAC-sanctioned individual become [an official] within a Government, it sends concern through the private sector of the United States. So, you see US companies often rethinking their relationships in the country,” she told reporters on the side-lines of the Global Biodiversity Alliance Summit that was held in July at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre in Georgetown.
“All these US companies want to come to Guyana, and Guyana is welcoming… And I don’t want that to change if he were to become a member of the Government. So, that’s a real concern that I have… It’s problematic in multiple ways… We have to be very careful if that person is involved; let’s say he was on a certain committee, we would have to be very careful in working with that committee. We have to ensure that we didn’t work with him specifically,” the ambassador had noted last month.
Meanwhile, the Guyana Government, including President Irfaan Ali as well as Vice President (VP) Bharrat Jagdeo, had previously explained that the US-sanctioned businessman is a risk and a threat to Guyana’s financial stability, sovereignty, and diplomacy.