Irfaan Ali: President

Mohamed Irfaan Ali has been sworn in for the second term as President of Guyana, to place him as the Head of State and the Executive Branch of Government until 2030. In our Parliamentary democracy, with his PPP party securing 36 seats in our 65-member National Assembly, he has a comfortable legislative majority to support his government’s programs in the next five years. With the success of the new WIN party to secure 16 seats and the PNC-dominated APNU dropping precipitously to 12, he will be facing a divided opposition in our historically partisan political landscape.
This in itself will be a challenge facing the President because with WIN pulling most of its votes from traditionally PNC enclaves, those two parties will be vying to prove which of them best represents the interests of their overlapping constituencies. It is hoped that WIN would orient itself to activities within the arena of Parliament and work to become at least an effective opposition party there, if not a “loyal opposition” that is the ideal. However, political outbidding against the PNC for the support of the large lumpen elements who have defined themselves as “scrapeheads”, presents the danger of extra-parliamentary threats which President Ali must prepare the appropriate state apparatus to deal with condignly. In his favour, is the widely-conceded fact that in his personal capacity he has played an outsized role in the decreased salience of the historic racialised voting pattern that has bedevilled our nation. His grassroots style political persona should go a far way in widening the PPP/C’s support in all sections of our nation.
In terms of the economic well being of the people of Guyana, President Ali’s PPP has crafted a very comprehensive Manifesto, which we know from experience he and his administration will work most diligently to implement. We do not have to recuperate all of the details of that Manifesto, save to emphasise that it places the development of people at its centre. The criticism that in his first term his programs focused too much on infrastructure with our oil revenues is quite misplaced. “Human development” – measured by health, education and standard of living – is quite dependent on infrastructure for its improvement. For instance, hospitals are necessary to ensure higher longevity; schools for further specialised and higher education, and higher generation of electricity and improved roads and bridges to attract businesses which will deliver jobs and improved standards of living. The PPP/C has also announced a welter of initiatives to deal with the most vulnerable sections of the populace. In his first term Pres Ali oversaw our UN Development index increase every year since 2021 to reach .776 by 2024; placing us 89th amongst 193 counties. The next five years should see an acceleration of this progress.
The increase in our oil production will continue unabated in the next five years to take our production beyond 1 million bpd. In addition to President Ali being in a strong position to fund his Manifesto’s pledges, this will give him a platform on the world stage as a leader of consequence. He can uniquely present Guyana as a responsible energy producer, diversified food producer and environmental conservationist. Pres Ali has also found himself a world leader at a time when the post WWII international order is in a state of flux as it moves contradictorily into a greater nation-centric multipolar configuration while the old multipolar institutions like the UN and WTO are declining. Pres Ali has shown that he is quite adept at traversing this new terrain in the furtherance of our national interests.
In the present, Pres Ali will have to use the opportunity presented by the US ramping up its “war on drugs” program against the Maduro regime in Venezuela, which has presented a clear and present danger to our national existence through their specious claim on our Essequibo. He was the first to declare his support of the US sending a fleet to interdict drug shipments from Venezuela. He should now boost our military capabilities to act as a deterrent against Maduro’s military adventurism.