Guyana’s Speaker of the National Assembly, Manzoor Nadir, was welcomed with a bouquet of flowers at a parliamentary conference in India this week. Meanwhile, Guyana continues its longest wait on record for the election of a Leader of the Opposition following the swearing of all members.
A photograph posted on X by the Lok Sabha Secretariat on January 14 showed Nadir being greeted on arrival by Indian lawmaker Ramvir Singh Bidhuri at the Conference of Speakers and Presiding Officers of the Commonwealth.
Back home, more than two months have passed since opposition parliamentarians were sworn in, with no date set for the meeting required to elect an opposition leader. The vote must be held at a session convened by the Speaker.
The leading contender for the post, Azruddin Mohamed of the We Invest in Nationhood party, faces court proceedings linked to a U.S. extradition request, a factor government operatives have cited in expressing concern about his possible election to the Opposition Leader’s post.
Western diplomats in Guyana representing the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and the European Union have all called for the opposition leader’s election to be held without further delay.
President Irfaan Ali, sworn in on Sept. 7, has been in office for more than four months without a constitutionally appointed Opposition Leader.
