Last Updated on Monday, 19 January 2026, 23:33 by Writer
Leader of the opposition Forward Guyana Movement (FGM), Amanza Walton-Desir Monday night said she would boycott next Monday’s sitting of the National Assembly to allow for the reading of the 2026 National Budget if Speaker Manzoor Nadir does not first call a meeting of opposition members of parliament (MPs) to elect the country’s opposition leader before presentation of the estimates.
“We will not sit there and pretend that it is business as usual,” she said in a statement, referring to the expected several hours-long reading of the 2026 National Budget on January 26 by finance minister Dr Ashni Singh.
“So let me be clear: Forward Guyana Movement will not be sitting to listen to Ashni go on for hours while the government refuses to facilitate the election of the Leader of the Opposition. We will not lend legitimacy to nonsense,” she added.
Further, she questioned how the budget for the Office of the Leader of the Opposition was crafted as it is funded by the State through a subvention from Parliament.
“So, who has been engaged to determine that figure? What figure did they budget for the operation of the Office of the Leader of the Opposition when they have deliberately refused to allow one to be elected?”
The 65-seat National Assembly met on November 3, 2025, the first and only time since the September 1 general and regional elections that saw the return of the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC) to office and the election of the Azruddin Mohamed-led We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) as Guyana’s main opposition party with 16 seats.
Mr Nadir has so far not called the constitutionally required meeting of opposition MPs to elect the opposition leader but speculation has been rife that he has been instructed by the government not to do so because Mr Mohamed is facing extradition to the United States (US) to be trialled for alleged financial crimes.
Attorney General Anil Nandlall is on record as saying that electing Mr Mohamed opposition leader would tarnish the country’s image.
“The stain and the international stigma that will attach to our parliamentary process, to the institutions of Guyana, by a fugitive offender not only sitting there but holding the post of opposition leader, is far graver and will cost us permanent damage,” he had said.
In contrast, Western diplomats, including US Ambassador to Guyana Nicole Theriot, have called for the election of the opposition leader.
The extradition committal hearing resumes on February 5.
Ms Walton-Desir, who was elected her party’s lone parliamentarian after the FGM mustered the largest number of remaining votes after the votes were counted and seats declared, said if the government goes ahead and reads the budget, “they have no moral or constitutional justification to treat it as normal business.”
She reasoned that Parliament is structurally incomplete by the PPPC-led administration’s “own deliberate inaction.” “The PPP is manufacturing normalcy whilst refusing to complete the constitutional architecture, and then using their majority numbers to bulldoze legitimacy,” said Ms Walton-Desir, a lawyer by profession.
Ms Walton-Desir said the issue of funding of the office of the opposition leader had nothing to do with anybody’s private money, means, or personality, in apparent reference to Mr Mohamed being a wealthy gold dealer.
She said Guyanese must no longer accept the government’s disregard as normal. Instead, she said the focus should be on whether Guyana would have a functioning democracy, or whether President Irfaan Ali and his government would simply do whatever they want because they have the numbers.
The PPPC won 36 seats in last year’s general elections. “This is not only disrespect to the Constitution, it is disrespect to the people of Guyana,” she said.
The FGM Leader demanded that before the Minister of Finance rises to present a “single budget figure”, the Speaker must call the meeting for the non-governmental members of parliament to elect the Leader of the Opposition.
Dr Ali recently said his administration had no business in whom is elected opposition leader, an apparent recant of a previous suggestion that the office holder could be a female.
Citing necessity, the President recently appointed three of the seven members of the Teaching Service Commission (TSC) in the absence of an opposition leader.
The Constitution stipulates that the government’s election of three TSC members must be done in consultation with the opposition leader.
Discover more from Demerara Waves Online News- Guyana
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
