Today marks the first anniversary of President Ali’s second and final term in office. It finds the presidency in a state of upheaval and uncertainty.
Like all leaders who aspire to govern their countries for a lengthy period – 10 years is a long time – President Ali no doubt wants to cement a legacy that secures the major commitments he has made together with a trajectory for the nation that optimizes and safeguards the benefits accruing to the country from its oil wealth for this and succeeding generations.
Where is the evidence of this legacy being built? While inauguration speeches have a tendency to be filled with soaring rhetoric and fulsome promises there is a risk that they build expectations particularly when they are uttered with the vehemence that the President has become associated with. One of the major themes of his first term in office was the nebulously presented concept of `One Guyana’ and a Commission to steer it. Both of these can now be declared to be missing in action and presumed consigned to the dustbin of history.
In his address to Parliament on February 11, 2021, President Ali declared the establishment of a One Guyana Commission aimed at attaining ‘oneness’. The path to this “oneness” he explained would include an Act of Parliament establishing a “One Guyana Commission” which would be led by Prime Minister Mark Phillips.
“I want to speak myself on the matter of partnerships between Government and representative bodies in the governance of our One Guyana. I propose to have regular high-level consultations with the representatives of the private sector, the trade unions, religious bodies and other civil society groups to address key issues that confront our nation. I intend also to directly engage communities and community leaders across every village in building trust and deepening relationships to the benefit of the people of those communities,” President Ali said.
Time went by and nothing happened. On June 16, 2023, the President in an Enmore Martyrs address recommitted to the concept of One Guyana and signalled the imminent establishment of the One Guyana Commission.
“I’ll be aggressively setting up the different structures that I spoke of how to advance our country’s development, which includes a One Guyana Commission. That commission would be established rapidly with the Prime Minister, of course chairing it,” he restated. The commission, Mr Ali said will focus on the rights and priorities of all and will be to the benefit of the policies they are pursuing. Again, nothing happened.
In his inauguration address of September 7, 2025, the President said that to foster deeper and more lasting national unity, he would operationalise the One Guyana Commission with particular emphasis on public infrastructure, cultural development and national integration.
More than five years after, the original promise of the One Guyana Commission has not materialized. It is not as if that in itself would have represented the fulfilling of a commitment. Far from it, the public would have seen up close how the One Guyana Commission was really about the PPP and its cronies Guyana. It clearly would have excluded the main opposition which the government has no intention of meaningfully engaging. It clearly would have excluded independent-minded sections of civil society which the government is aiming to miniaturise as evidenced by a series of measures including the stacking of the Guyana Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative with its friendly groups.
So the One Guyana Commission aside can the government point to any substantial effort at building this national unity that is so necessary as a final decision on the border controversy with Venezuela looms at the International Court of Justice and pivotal questions remain as to the inequities and iniquities of the 2016 Production Sharing Agreement? There is no palpable evidence of this.
Perceiving an existential threat from the now main opposition We Invest in Nationhood (WIN), the government waited until the last day possible before convening a new Parliament and then no doubt inspired a further delay in having an Opposition Leader elected and then slowed down the convening of key parliamentary committees. It is clearly also behind the failure to enable the election of a Chairman and a Deputy for Region 10 and will find opportunistic grounds not to convene local government elections which are due around November this year.
This conduct is not one of a government pursuing unity but one in hide and seek mode and trying perpetually to find ways to outflank and limit the impact of the main opposition. All the while the toll grows. The sinking of the MV Barima on July 18 with the loss of around 100 lives has exposed the myth of the new and shining Guyana that the government has sought to construct of a new Dubai. An 87-year-old vessel creaking along the Essequibo Coast while the ferocious Atlantic battered it and its poorly housed and mainly Amerindian passengers is a searing indictment of this government. Culpability has thus far been avoided here. In well-established democracies dismissals of ministers and even resignations of governments would have occurred. There is no sign of this. Not even the damning stagnation of the wharf at Port Kaituma, completion of which would have relieved the aged MV Barima of duties has triggered any serious accounting.
Instead of seeking to engage with the opposition in a manner that recognizes the large part of the electorate that it represents, President Ali and his government are devoting untold energy in containing their erstwhile ally, the Opposition Leader, all the while hoping for his extradition to the United States on a Grand Jury indictment. At the same time the President has avoided the stern examination that must come as it relates to the sprawling farm he has managed to acquire.
In the meanwhile, the cost of living continues to bite, the sugar industry remains in dire straits and sucking up vast amounts of money, foreign exchange is scarce, diversification of the economy is measured in a crop of onions, a shade house here or there and chickens in a wind tunnel even as a shortage of poultry has gripped the market. There is no fundamental reorientation of the economy away from oil, just a lot of talk and money being poured into ventures such as soya beans without an accounting as to how this is benefiting the state and its people.
There have no doubt been bright spots such as the creation of centres in various regions where government services are centralized so people can easily conduct transactions together with the assigning of house lots and the provision of land titles. These however come with the task of governing and are expected in line with the revenues accruing to the country.
What President Ali and his two governments have failed signally to do over the last six years is to protect the interests of the Guyanese people and future generations in its arrangements with ExxonMobil and its partners. Guyana continues to suffer from this unjust deal but this has not moved President Ali at all. He is adamant that nothing in the 2016 PSA will be altered despite the fact that it was forced on the country without the benefit of examination by experts on our side.
So even if President Ali is able to present a One Guyana Commission filled with the usual suspects and cronies he will be ultimately judged by his failure to secure improved benefits from Guyana’s Stabroek Block. A significant portion of the country is demanding changes to this deal. It is unclear how the President intends to ensure unity on this score.
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