Elections 2025 (E-25) is in full gear. On Thursday, June 19, 16 political parties attended a briefing session with GECOM. At the moment some 27 political parties have hinted at participation, if they are able to meet eligibility requirements. One thing is immediately apparent – E-25 will have two distinct groups of presidential candidates. The first group consists of one candidate, Dr. Irfaan Ali, the present incumbent, who is respected, admired and loved everywhere in Guyana and internationally respected. The second group consists of all the other presidential candidates. Except for the PNC-led APNU’s candidate who has a poor track record, with no real accomplishment, all the others lack a track record and almost all of them have problems that are either ethical or criminal.
Outside of policies and parties’ performances, presidential candidates are important choices people must make for E-25. It is quickly apparent that one presidential candidate stands way above all the others. In fact, E-25 provides no alternative to the present incumbent, Dr. Irfaan Ali. In terms of party leaders, no one comes even close to Bharat Jagdeo.
The PPP General Secretary, Dr. Bharat Jagdeo, and the PPP’s Presidential candidate, Dr. Irfaan Ali, have garnered an impressive list of international awards and recognition. This is in very stark contrast to the leaders of other political parties and their presidential candidates who are either criminally sanctioned internationally or are ridiculed at home and abroad.
The leader of the PPP, its General Secretary, Dr. Bharat Jagdeo, is one of the Caribbean’s most internationally-recognized former head-of-state. Dr. Bharat Jagdeo is admired, respected and loved throughout Guyana. Dr. Bharat Jagdeo has a long list of honorary doctorates from prestigious universities around the world, bestowed on him based on merit and his leadership roles and not based on monetary contributions. A short-listing of international awards include: Time magazine as a “Hero of the Environment” (2008), United Nations’ “Champion of the Earth” (2010), Roving Ambassador for the Three Basins (Amazon, Congo Basin, and South East Asia) (2011), President of the Assembly of the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) and Founding Board Member (since 2010), Chairman of the Board of Governors of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank (2005 to 2006), and many others too numerable to list here.
President Irfaan Ali has accumulated in just five years an impressive list of international awards. These include the prestigious Global Leadership Award for Open Innovation (2024) from the University of California, Berkeley which was given to him in April 2025. President Ali is the first Caribbean leader to be so recognized. Among other heads-of-state that have previously received this award was President Barack Obama of the USA.
On December 5, 2024, HE President Mohamed Irfaan Ali was awarded by the Wilson Centre’s Latin America Program for his efforts in environmental and biodiversity sustainability as well as climate action.Since 1998, the Wilson Centre has recognizedexemplary individuals with the Woodrow Wilson Awards, honoring them for thoughtful discussion, generous philanthropy, and selfless service contributing to making the world a better place for all of us.
Outside of the University of California, Berkeley Global Leadership Award and the Wilson Centre Award, Guyana’s president has accumulated a long list of prestigious international awards. In July, 2024, in an acknowledgment of his exceptional leadership, President Irfaan Ali was bestowed with the prestigious Caribbean Global Awards 2024 for his contributions within the region. Earlier in 2024, he was awarded the esteemed Global Africa Leadership Award during an official visit to Ghana.In April, 2024, President Dr. Irfaan Ali was conferred with the Legacy Award Class of 2024 at the American Foundation for the University of the West Indies (AFUWI)’s 27th Annual Awards Gala in New York. In January 2023, during an official visit to India, President Irfaan Ali was bestowed with the highest honor conferred on overseas Indians – the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award (PBSA) – for the year 2023 by Prime Minister Modi.In November 2023, during the 57th Independence Anniversary and the 2nd Republican Day anniversary for Barbados, Prime Minister Mia Mottley bestowed President Ali with the prestigious Order of Freedom of Barbados, the country’s highest national award. In May 2023, the Inter-American Institute for Co-operation on Agriculture (IICA) awarded President Ali as the first recipient of the IICA Award for Contribution to Food Security and Sustainable Development.
The other leaders and presidential candidates, for Elections 2025, in bleak contrast, lack any similar global respect, admiration and awards as the PPP’s leader and its presidential candidate. It is not merely that they just have less recognition in comparison to Bharat Jagdeo and Irfaan Ali, they have zero.
In spite of his many deficiencies, the main opponent vying for the presidency against President Irfaan Ali is Aubrey Norton, the PNC leader. He is not even honored within his party and within the ranks of the opposition. His best-known accomplishment is he was Desmond Hoyte’s, the then-PNC’s leader’s “creature”, made by Hoyte and, therefore, eligible for being discarded at the whim of the leader. He was, in fact, discarded by every other political leader that followed Hoyte. Today, he is disowned by his own rank and file. Outside of this, Norton has had an ordinary career as a foreign affairs staff member. He is undoubtedly a celebrity from Bam-Bam Alley, displaying his grass-root credentials which we commend him for. Other leaders of opposition parties have deemed him unsuitable for being a presidential candidate. He was even recently thrown out as leader of APNU, although he has muscled his way back in as the leader.
The AFC leader, Nigel Hughes, after decades of practice, is not even a senior counsel. He would, of course, insist that the PPP government has denied him this honor. But his friends and colleagues were in the government between 2015 and 2020. They did not consider him “fit and proper” for this recognition. His law firm, and by extension, he himself, was EXXON’s lawyer when the PNC-led APNU/AFC Government signed the one-sided EXXON deal and more recently insisted that unless he was elected president, his loyalty would be with EXXON, as their lawyer. It is true his firm recently announced that he would no longer be representing EXXON’s interest as part of the firm. Hughes is best known and internationally ridiculed for trying to convince the Guyanese people that 33 is not more than 32. When on December 21, 2023, the PPP successfully moved a no-confidence motion against the PNC-led APNU/AFC government, Nigel Hughes in an attempt to overturn the vote utilized his own newly-invented mathematics theory.
Azrudin Mohamed is known for displaying his expensive toys, like a Lamborghini, which was obtained in part through criminally lying to the GRA about the cost. He is truly rich, but the USA has sanctioned him and his family for criminal activities and evasion of taxes.
There are others who have flirted with illegal activities who have been unofficially running for president. These have taken to AI-generated FB postings as their daily staple.
The contrast between the PPP’s leader and its presidential candidate and those from other parties are very stark, like day and night differences. It is an easy choice for the Guyanese people. It is one of the many reasons why we have seen an exodus from the opposition to the PPP.