On Monday, 24 August 2026, two of Guyana’s leading opposition political groups — A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) — convened a closed-door negotiating session that concluded without final agreements on the high-stakes issues that had prompted the gathering, and no date has been scheduled for a follow-up round of talks as of Monday evening.
The meeting grew out of a public disagreement that erupted after WIN, led by Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed, submitted nominees for Guyana’s Local Government Commission (LGC), the body tasked with hiring, disciplining, and terminating staff for municipal and local councils across the country, that excluded all APNU picks. APNU, which holds 12 seats in parliament, is demanding at least one seat on the commission, arguing that the allocation should reflect its proportional representation in national and local legislative bodies. Mohamed instead put forward two WIN members and one nominee from the single-seat Forward Guyana Movement.
In addition to the LGC nomination dispute, Monday’s talks were scheduled to address several other long-running points of contention between the two opposition blocs. These included WIN’s year-old demand that APNU-affiliated commissioners step down from the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to make space for WIN representation, the deadlocked leadership election for the Region 10 (Upper Demerara-Upper Berbice) Council, and protocols for hiring party scrutineers paid by GECOM. WIN currently holds a tied vote for the region’s top council positions and is pushing for a new council meeting to break the impasse.
Despite more than eight hours passing after the session wrapped, party representatives had still not finalized the text of a promised joint public statement on the meeting’s outcome by Monday evening. Speaking to reporters after exiting the less-than-one-hour talks, both leaders confirmed that none of the core disputed issues were actually addressed during the meeting.
“We had no discussions on the way forward with the Local Government Commission and GECOM issue so we will be issuing a joint statement. Dialogue will continue,” Mohamed told reporters. He added that both delegations need to return to their internal party caucuses to align on negotiating positions before advancing discussions on the major issues. He noted that Monday’s session focused instead on drafting the joint statement, agreeing to terms of reference for future talks, and discussing a potential future memorandum of understanding between the two groups.
APNU Chairman and PNCR (People’s National Congress Reform, APNU’s core member party) leader Aubrey Norton echoed Mohamed’s comments, saying that the two sides had agreed in principle to develop a formal guiding framework for future negotiations before tackling the substantive disputes. “I know in principle, we have agreed that we will work out a clear approach to moving forward,” Norton said, describing the meeting itself as “cordial.” He emphasized that formal frameworks are a necessary foundation for serious negotiations: “When you’re in serious negotiations, you need to have clear principles, a clear framework to be guided.”
Demerara Waves Online News confirmed Monday evening that PNCR General Secretary Sherwin Benjamin and his WIN counterpart had still not reached consensus on the wording of the joint statement hours after the meeting ended. Shortly after 7:30 p.m., APNU parliamentarian and Working People’s Alliance (WPA) leader Dr. Hinds acknowledged on his social media program *Politics 101* that a joint statement would be released later that evening, but declined to share details of the meeting’s outcome.
Dr. Hinds also noted that a small minority of political actors have opposed any formal talks between WIN and APNU, but added that the broad base of voters who supported both blocs share a strong opposition to the ruling People’s Progressive Party (PPP). “One thing that is certain is that the critical mass of persons who voted for WIN and the 12-seat APNU, they have a very healthy dislike for the PPP,” he said.
As of the latest update on Monday evening, no date had been announced for the next round of negotiations between the two opposition groups.