标签： Guyana

On Friday, May 15 2026, senior leadership of Guyana’s main opposition coalition A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), led by the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR), publicly acknowledged that five of seven high-profile current and former party figures are preparing to cross the floor to join the ruling People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC). Speaking at a formal press briefing, PNCR executive member Ganesh Mahipaul pushed back against claims that the impending departures caught the party off guard, noting that shifting social media activity and dramatic changes in public positioning had long signaled the members’ impending exit.

When asked why the coalition had not taken preemptive disciplinary action against the members planning to leave, Mahipaul explained that concrete evidence of disloyalty remained insufficient for formal action, adding that the PNCR has no inherent desire to expel or push away any of its members. He drew a parallel to the high-profile 2018 case of former APNU+AFC parliamentarian Charrandass Persaud, whose plans to vote in favor of a PPPC-sponsored no-confidence motion were widely rumored in political circles long before the official vote, mirroring the open speculation around this latest round of defections.

Over the past five years, multiple senior PNCR figures including two former general secretaries and one former chairman have already left the party to join either the PPPC or the new opposition outfit We Invest in Nationhood (WIN). But Mahipaul stressed that none of the members planning the latest exit, nor the previous defectors, have access to the PNCR’s confidential internal strategy or core decision-making processes. He clarified that the seven individuals – three former members of parliament (Rickly Ramsaroop, Shurwayne Holder, and Dinesh Jaiprashad) and four sitting regional councillors (Ravoldo Birbal, Sheik Yaseen, Prince Holder, and Gangadai Lloyd) – hold no key responsibilities in the coalition’s ongoing operations, so their departure will not disrupt APNU’s forward progress. Notably, Guyana currently has no recall legislation that would force sitting regional councillors to give up their seats after switching party affiliation.

Mahipaul also pointed to a potential driver for the defections, suggesting that many members who leave the PNCR for the ruling party are motivated by the prospect of securing lucrative multi-million-dollar government contracts. He emphasized that the party values unwavering loyalty, commitment, and dedication among its ranks, while noting that recent membership growth has offset losses from departures: despite widespread reports of PPPC-led voter intimidation and victimization of opposition supporters, the coalition has recently added 397 new registered members. Since the 2025 general and regional elections, Mahipaul added, the PNCR has launched a sustained outreach campaign to expand its grassroots presence across Guyana and retain its relevance to voters.

The briefing also addressed growing public calls for PNCR leader Aubrey Norton to step down, following the coalition’s worst-ever electoral defeat in 2025 that saw it reduced to just 12 of 65 seats in the National Assembly, and pushed it out of the position of main opposition to the new political party WIN, which secured 16 seats. Mahipaul rejected external pressure on Norton’s leadership, stating that decisions about the party’s top leadership are exclusively for party members to make at an official congress, not for outside observers or non-members. “Our political party does not work on what Jim Jones or Tom Jones want to say on the outside. We work based on structure and order,” he said, adding that any member of the public who wants a say in party governance is welcome to join the organization.

Mahipaul made clear that he personally hopes Norton will not resign, which would leave the party in a state of leadership chaos. He argued that even if Norton steps down from the leadership role in the future, he should remain within the party to share his decades of institutional knowledge and guide newer leaders. “You just can’t drop off the sky and come off the map and abandon your ship. What kind of a leader will you be should you just run away and leave the ship?” Mahipaul said.

On Friday, 15 May 2026, the presidents of neighboring Caribbean nations Guyana and Suriname held a productive virtual diplomatic meeting focused on resolving long-standing cross-border disagreements and expanding bilateral cooperation across multiple key sectors.

Guyanese President Irfaan Ali was joined in the meeting by Agriculture Minister Zulfikar Mustapha and Foreign Affairs Minister Hugh Todd, while Surinamese President Jennifer Geerlings-Simons led her country’s delegation to the talks. While Ali shared only broad reflections on the discussion in a public Facebook post following the meeting, Geerlings-Simons offered detailed insights into the agenda and outcomes of the bilateral dialogue.

At the top of the meeting’s agenda were two long-running cross-border disputes that have strained economic ties between the two nations. The first is a disagreement over access to the shared Corentyne River (called Corantijn by Suriname), sparked when Suriname implemented steep new access fees for Guyanese cargo vessels moving quarry and timber products from Guyanese concessions to Guyana’s side of the waterway. Under the new fee structure, charges can reach as high as US$1,500 per ton, a dramatic increase from the previous flat rate of US$75 per vessel that Guyana is pushing to reinstate. As a path forward, Suriname has requested that Guyana submit a formal application for fee exemptions for specific vessels.

The second unresolved issue on the agenda is access to fishing waters for Guyanese fishermen. Successive Surinamese administrations have failed to follow through on past commitments to formalize access: the previous Chandrikapersad Santokhi government, which left office after last year’s general election, had pledged to establish a special mechanism to issue fishing licenses to Guyanese crews, but no progress was made on the promise during its term.

Beyond dispute resolution, the two leaders also discussed expanding bilateral collaboration in high-growth sectors, including oil and gas, and agreed to actively involve the private sector in future cooperation initiatives to drive tangible economic gains for both nations. Climate change and its immediate impacts also featured prominently on the meeting’s agenda, coming on the heels of extreme heavy rainfall that triggered severe widespread flooding across Guyana, Suriname, and neighboring French Guiana in the week leading up to the talks. The two leaders agreed that their respective Public Works ministries will collaborate at the technical level to address flood-related water management challenges and develop coordinated infrastructure adaptations to boost regional resilience to climate-driven extreme weather.

Both presidents characterized the talks as positive and constructive. Geerlings-Simons described the exchange as “constructive and friendly”, while Ali noted in his Facebook post that he was “delighted today to speak to my friend and our neighbour” on “various opportunities and challenges ahead of us.” He added, “I was pleased at our shared commitment in deepening our partnership and friendship to ensure further economic cooperation, expansion of trade, and integration of our economies.”

To keep momentum on the discussed issues, the two leaders have agreed to hold another meeting on short notice under the framework of the existing Suriname-Guyana Strategic Dialogue and Cooperation Platform, with a focus on advancing the resolutions agreed upon during this virtual session.

In a post-election analysis published Thursday, May 14, 2026, the U.S.-based Carter Center has delivered a mixed assessment of Guyana’s 2025 general and regional elections, praising the process’ far greater transparency than the heavily contested 2020 vote while calling for sweeping reforms to fix outdated electoral boundaries that violate the core democratic principle of equal suffrage.

The September 1, 2025 polls delivered a clear political shift: incumbent President Irfaan Ali’s People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC) secured re-election with an expanded parliamentary majority, while the long-dominant opposition bloc A Partnership for National Unity, led by the People’s National Congress Reform, was upset by the newly launched We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) party. WIN claimed 16 seats to become the largest opposition faction in the 65-seat National Assembly, with APNU finishing second among opposition groups.

The core recommendation from the Carter Center, which has observed Guyanese elections and supported democratic development in the country since 1992, centers on the urgent need to redraw electoral constituency boundaries that have not been updated in 24 years, since they were set by parliamentary legislation in 2001. New 2022 national population data, released in January 2026, confirms that significant demographic shifts across the country have left the current boundary framework severely misaligned with the principle of one person, one vote.

Under Guyana’s current complex electoral system, 40 parliamentary seats are allocated through a single national constituency, while the remaining 25 seats are distributed across the country’s 10 regions as a geographic component. The framework assumes equal population distribution across the 25 geographic seats, but two national censuses conducted in 2012 and 2022 have recorded substantial population changes that the system has never adjusted to.

The Carter Center’s report notes that Guyana’s existing Representation of the People Act already grants the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) legal authority to divide the country into polling districts and sub-districts, with the only restriction that districts cannot cross regional boundaries. To bring the country in line with global democratic standards, the organization proposes that a ongoing national constitutional review process evaluate Guyana’s entire electoral system and boundary delimitation methodologies to guarantee equal suffrage.

International best practices mandate regular boundary reviews to prevent unequal voting power, and the Carter Center is calling on Guyanese authorities to codify mandatory periodic reviews into national law. The reforms would adjust boundaries to reflect current population counts and cap the allowed population deviation between constituencies at less than 10 percent, down from the large deviation that currently exists. The organization also recommends that all apportionment criteria, including whether boundaries are drawn based on total residents, registered voters, actual voter turnout or a combination of metrics, be made fully public to increase accountability.

“Reforming laws related to boundary delimitation and addressing the large gap between electoral quotients for obtaining seats in small and large electoral constituencies will allow Guyana to more fully respect the principle of equal suffrage,” the report states.

Beyond boundary reform, the Carter Center joined other regional and international observer missions in highlighting persistent flaws in Guyana’s electoral ecosystem. Key concerns cited include lax campaign finance regulations that allow unregulated spending, the misuse of state resources that disproportionately benefits incumbent political parties, unequal access to media coverage for opposition groups, limited participation from civil society organizations, and structural barriers that prevent marginalized communities from fully engaging in the political process.

Even as it called for further reform, the Carter Center offered significant praise for improvements made after the deeply flawed 2020 election, which was marred by widespread attempts to rig the vote count. Post-2020 legislative overhauls to the tabulation process delivered tangible progress, the organization confirmed.

“Overall, the post-2020 reforms were positive, contributing to a more efficient and transparent tabulation process that better ensured results reflected the will of the electorate,” the report read. Carter Center observer teams assessed tabulation procedures across all 17 national tabulation centers, finding the process was conducted reasonably or very well in every location. Transparency was greatly improved through the public posting of official Statements of Poll and the timely upload of all results to GECOM’s official website, the organization added.

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is facing a growing internal rift over the planned reappointment of incumbent Secretary-General Dr. Carla Barnett, with a leading regional international relations scholar calling for a do-over of the selection process rooted in consensus and performance assessment. The dispute comes ahead of the end of Dr. Barnett’s first five-year term, which is scheduled to conclude this July.

Dr. Kai-Ann Skeete, a trade research fellow at the Shridath Ramphal Center for International Trade, Law, Policy and Services at the University of the West Indies (UWI) Cave Hill Campus in Barbados, laid out her stance on the contentious issue Thursday during an international conference hosted by the Centre for International and Border Studies. The event, themed “Navigating The Future: Guyana, the Caribbean and Latin America in a Changing Global Environment”, provided a platform to address the leadership crisis unfolding within the 15-member regional bloc.

Dr. Skeete stressed that any decision on the top CARICOM leadership post must be reached through full consensus among all member states, rather than the majority vote that was used to approve Dr. Barnett’s second term. Her position directly contradicts the announcement made in March by CARICOM Chairman and St. Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister Dr. Terrance Drew, who confirmed that leaders had approved Dr. Barnett’s reappointment for a second five-year term starting this August at their February 24–27 summit, citing that the vote met the bloc’s required majority threshold.

“For CARICOM, such a critical decision needs buy-in from every member,” Dr. Skeete argued. “If we rely on majority rule, you will inevitably have a faction that feels disenfranchised, and that fracture undermines the very foundation of regional integration. Consensus means no winners and no losers — it means we all move forward together.”

Beyond the procedural dispute, Dr. Skeete also pushed for selection criteria that prioritize tangible performance over institutional tradition or political negotiation. She acknowledged that she entered Dr. Barnett’s first term with high hopes: as a woman, a former CARICOM Secretariat staffer, and a former vice president of the Barbados-based Caribbean Development Bank, Dr. Barnett entered office with intimate firsthand knowledge of the long-running tensions between the bloc’s more developed countries (MDCs) and its least developed countries (LDCs). Dr. Skeete had expected Dr. Barnett to leverage that experience to bridge divides and unify member states around shared regional goals.

Unfortunately, Dr. Skeete said that expectation went unmet. Over the past five years, the gap between richer and poorer CARICOM members has actually widened, leaving the bloc more fragmented than it was when Dr. Barnett took office in 2021. She attributed this underperformance to the overriding influence of regional politics that constrained Dr. Barnett’s ability to act as a unifying leader, noting that “politics stepped in and Dr. Barnett stayed in her lane.”

Against this backdrop, Dr. Skeete called for an urgent revisit of the reappointment question to resolve the dispute quickly, warning that the bloc cannot afford to be distracted by internal leadership conflict when it faces a host of pressing collective challenges to grapple with by the end of 2026. “Regional integration is non-negotiable for the Caribbean,” she emphasized. “The core question we need to answer is simple: can this candidate unite the region, deepen integration, and advance our shared goals? If the answer is no, it is time to give another candidate the opportunity.”

The call for a revised process comes as the bloc remains deeply split over the 2026 reappointment. Trinidad and Tobago, one of CARICOM’s largest economies, has been the most vocal opponent, vowing it will not recognize Dr. Barnett’s second term because it was excluded from the heads of government forum that approved the appointment. Trinidad and Tobago has been joined by Antigua and Barbuda, Jamaica, and the Premier of Nevis in calling for the issue to be reopened for discussion. On the opposing side, Guyana, Belize and Dominica have publicly thrown their support behind the original reappointment process and Dr. Barnett’s second term.

The dispute is unfolding under the framework of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, the legal document that governs CARICOM operations. Article 24 of the treaty states only that the Secretary-General shall be appointed by the Conference of Heads of Government on the recommendation of the Community Council, for a term no longer than five years, and may be reappointed by the Conference — it does not explicitly require a consensus vote for reappointment, leaving the procedural question open to interpretation amid the current rift.

GEORGETOWN, Guyana – May 14, 2026 – In a gathering of top Guyanese government officials including cabinet ministers, incoming Regional Executive Officers (REOs), Permanent Secretaries and leadership of the National Procurement and Tender Administration, President Irfaan Ali has laid out a sweeping set of leadership changes across the public sector, pushing back against claims that upcoming REO replacements are tied to corruption investigations.

Addressing swirling speculation surrounding the shuffle of 10 regional leadership posts, President Ali clarified that the personnel moves are not rooted in findings of corrupt practice. While the administration does leverage Auditor General’s reports as a formal performance assessment tool for REOs and all public accounting officers, the President noted all officials are given full opportunity to respond to concerns raised in audit documents, and the upcoming changes align with a broader strategy to align regional leadership with the country’s evolving development priorities.

“That narrative has no basis,” President Ali told Demerara Waves Online News in a post-gathering interview, when asked if the changes stemmed from poor performance flagged by audit reports. “I won’t say that they were wanting in relation to the Auditor General’s Report.”

The President explained that the newly appointed REOs bring targeted skill sets that match ongoing and upcoming large-scale projects across Guyana’s 10 administrative regions. For regions rolling out new hospital construction and major modern infrastructure upgrades, for example, the administration is installing leaders with deep specialized expertise in healthcare development and large project management. Other regions targeted for high-priority economic growth initiatives will get leadership tailored to those investment goals. Contrary to framing of the move as a mass sacking of 10 REOs, President Ali emphasized that many outgoing officers will transition into new advisory roles within government until their existing contracts expire, framing the shuffle as a routine effort to refresh public sector leadership and nurture emerging talent for senior posts.

To strengthen ongoing oversight of public spending and procurement, the Ali administration announced it will deploy artificial intelligence to conduct quarterly compliance assessments for REOs and Permanent Secretaries. The technology will be used to actively monitor procurement processes, boost operational efficiency, and flag irregular or unethical practices. President Ali stressed that any violations of financial or procurement rules – including inappropriate conflicts of interest involving multiple vendors – will result in serious disciplinary action, up to and including immediate removal from office for severe breaches.

Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo reinforced the administration’s commitment to accountability, noting in an official government statement that all public expenditure must be evaluated based on its tangible contribution to citizen welfare and national development. The government is working to strengthen oversight systems, eliminate wasteful spending, and embed core principles of accountability, efficiency and transparency across all levels of governance.

The leadership overhaul extends beyond regional administrative posts. President Ali confirmed that the long-struggling state-owned Guyana Sugar Corporation (GUYSUCO), which has suffered years of chronically low production and relies on billions of dollars in annual government subsidies, will see management changes consistent with commitments the administration made several months prior.

Additionally, a broader shake-up of government-run service agencies is set to take place within the next three weeks, fulfilling a pledge President Ali made during his inauguration speech. The President confirmed that leadership changes will be implemented at agencies where performance targets have not been met, following a comprehensive nationwide evaluation of public service delivery.

In its official statement released Wednesday, the Guyana government reaffirmed that President Ali and Vice President Jagdeo underscored the administration’s unwavering commitment to accountability, transparency, fiscal prudence and improved service delivery across all government tiers. Those priorities were laid out directly to attending officials, who include cabinet members, incoming REOs, Permanent Secretaries, National Procurement and Tender Administration Board officers and accounting officers from all 10 regions.

“The President stressed that sacred trust accompanies public office and that every dollar spent must be to advance the welfare of the people and support national development. All procurement systems, including regional tender boards, are required to operate with full transparency and strict adherence to the law,” the government statement read.

As tensions escalate over the decades-long territorial dispute between Venezuela and Guyana over the resource-rich Essequibo Region, a senior U.S. diplomat has confirmed that Washington is holding closed-door diplomatic negotiations to de-escalate the crisis, after Venezuela’s leader rejected any binding ruling from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on the conflict.

U.S. Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg made the announcement Wednesday during a press briefing at the U.S. Embassy in Georgetown, Guyana, at the conclusion of a one-day official visit to the South American nation. Helberg emphasized that the U.S. is keeping close watch over ongoing proceedings at the ICJ, and agrees that regional security is a foundational requirement for economic growth and prosperity across the hemisphere.

“Ultimately a lot of those conversations right now will be private, and we believe that we can make progress through private conversations,” Helberg told reporters, declining to disclose which parties are participating in the backchannel discussions. The comment came in response to a question from Demerara Waves Online News, which asked whether the U.S. was prepared to step in as a mediator to preserve hemispheric stability and energy security, should Venezuela maintain its hardline stance against the ICJ’s authority.

The territorial dispute carries major energy stakes: ExxonMobil and multiple other U.S. oil firms hold offshore exploration concessions in the Essequibo Region, and have tied their long-term development plans to a binding ICJ ruling on the conflict, which is expected to be issued either by the end of 2026 or in the first quarter of 2027.

The standoff reached a new flashpoint earlier this week, following dramatic developments from both Caracas and Washington. On Monday, Venezuelan Interim President Delcy Rodriguez told the ICJ that her government would refuse to abide by any court decision that upholds the 1899 Arbitral Tribunal Award, the agreement Guyana recognizes as the final settlement of its shared border with Venezuela. Rodriguez reaffirmed Venezuela’s long-held position that the dispute can only be resolved through bilateral negotiations, based on Caracas’s interpretation of the 1966 Geneva Agreement signed between Venezuela and the United Kingdom, which was Guyana’s colonial ruler at the time. Notably, Venezuela omits reference to a key clause in the 1966 deal that permitted the U.N. Secretary General to refer the unresolved conflict to an adjudicatory body like the ICJ; the U.N. took that step, clearing the way for Guyana to file its formal case with the court.

During her ICJ appearance, Rodriguez repeated her longstanding accusations that Guyana has colluded with ExxonMobil, the U.S. government and U.S. Southern Command to carry out what she frames as an imperialist plot to seize the Essequibo Region from Venezuela.

A day before Helberg’s visit to Guyana, U.S. President Donald Trump drew global attention to the dispute with a post on his Truth Social account, shared to X (formerly Twitter). The post included a map of Venezuela that omitted the entire Essequibo Region, alongside a fully recognized map of Guyana that includes the contested territory shaded within the U.S.-shaded map of Venezuela.

The decades-old dispute has flared in recent years following the discovery of massive oil reserves offshore Essequibo, turning a long-simmering territorial conflict into a high-stakes issue for global energy markets and regional security in South America.

On Wednesday, May 13, 2026, a high-stakes bilateral meeting between Guyanese President Dr. Irfaan Ali and visiting U.S. Under Secretary of State for Economic Affairs Jacob Helberg opened a new chapter in bilateral economic cooperation, with plans for deepened engagement on targeted investments spanning multiple key industries. The diplomatic gathering, held at Guyana’s State House, included senior delegations from both sides: Helberg was accompanied by U.S. Ambassador to Guyana Nicole Theriot, while President Ali was joined by cabinet ministers Dr. Ashni Singh, Hugh Todd, Vickram Bharrat and Zulfikar Ally, alongside Foreign Secretary Robert Persaud and National Intelligence and Security Agency Director Colonel Sheldon Howell.

Shortly after the closed-door talks, during a press briefing at the U.S. Embassy ahead of wrapping up his one-day official visit to the South American nation, Helberg outlined the tangible outcomes of the discussions, revealing that detailed technical working-level talks will follow the high-level dialogue, with a potential permanent bilateral working group under consideration to maintain consistent progress and accountability on cooperation commitments.

A core focus of the talks was expanding private investment in Guyana’s already established bauxite mining sector. Currently, two operators—China’s BOSAI Minerals and U.S.-owned First Bauxite—run active production operations in the country, while Russian firm RUSAL is on track to restart its Guyanese activities later this year, after suspending operations in 2018 amid a major labor dispute. Helberg noted that discussions centered on expanding bauxite output and market access, with new U.S. investment targeting two key enablers: critical transportation infrastructure, particularly road networks, and cutting-edge autonomous trucking technology. These upgrades, he explained, would act as a catalyst to move more Guyanese bauxite to global markets faster and more efficiently.

Beyond the bauxite sector, Helberg highlighted a wide range of untapped investment opportunities for U.S. firms in Guyana. Pointing to the $55 trillion in liquid assets held by the U.S. private sector—what he called the world’s largest single pool of investment capital that would deliver mutual benefits to both Guyana and the United States—he identified promising sectors including data center development, tourism expansion, agricultural and food technology, and broader digital innovation. A key highlighted area of potential cooperation is partnership between Guyana and Silicon Valley, the global epicenter of high-tech innovation. Helberg noted that Guyana offers unique advantages for Silicon Valley firms, from testing new emerging technologies to establishing permanent local operations. He also outlined a transformative potential for artificial intelligence integration: AI-powered logistics infrastructure could position Guyana as a key regional hub that cuts transit times for northern Brazilian goods accessing Caribbean markets.

Closing his remarks, Helberg offered strong praise for the Guyanese government’s approach to economic growth, noting that he left the meeting confident in President Ali’s decisive leadership. “I can confidently say after this trip that President Ali does bring a level of decisiveness that really avails an opportunity to be transformative for the country of Guyana,” he said.

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad – May 13, 2026 – A deep rift has opened within the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) after Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar of Trinidad and Tobago drew a hard line in public, confirming her nation will refuse to recognize Dr. Carla Barnett’s second five-year term as Secretary-General when her first term expires this coming August.

Persad-Bissessar made the position unequivocal in an interview with the Trinidad Express, emphasizing that the stance is non-negotiable regardless of backing from other regional member states. “Trinidad and Tobago only recognises Barnett as SG until the end of her term this August 2026. All CARICOM leaders could do as they please, but Trinidad and Tobago will not recognise her as SG for a next term. That’s not going to change,” she said, adding that “this is our final position.”

The dispute traces back to a February 2026 CARICOM summit held in Basseterre, St. Kitts and Nevis, where regional leaders voted to reappoint Barnett, a Belizean economist who first took office as the bloc’s eighth Secretary-General in August 2021. CARICOM Chair and St. Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister Dr. Terrance Drew confirmed in March that Barnett secured the required majority of votes to win reappointment. But Persad-Bissessar was not present for the vote, and her government has repeatedly challenged the legitimacy of the entire process.

Trinidad and Tobago’s top objection centers on the absence of Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sean Sobers from the key retreat where the appointment was finalized. Sobers could not attend due to a scheduling conflict: he was hosting an official visit from India’s External Affairs Minister Dr. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and fulfilling parliamentary duties. Persad-Bissessar accuses Barnett herself of sending a WhatsApp message to disinvite Sobers from the meeting, a claim that CARICOM leadership has denied. Drew has repeatedly stated Trinidad and Tobago was never uninvited to the retreat.

The Prime Minister has also condemned what she calls deliberate lack of transparency around the process, noting that Barnett personally drafted the press release issued under Drew’s name that defended her reappointment, while intentionally omitting any reference to the disinvitation text that remains visible in the CARICOM Council for Foreign and Community Relations (COFCOR) WhatsApp group. To date, Persad-Bissessar says her government has received no answers to its formal questions about the incident, calling the lack of response “really shameful.”

Last week, Dominica Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit acknowledged the controversy had played out extensively in public, confirming that his government and other regional states view Barnett’s reappointment as valid. A closed-door, five-hour meeting of CARICOM leaders held over the preceding weekend addressed Trinidad and Tobago’s objections, but ultimately members voted to uphold the original February decision and rejected calls to restart the appointment process, local media reports confirm.

Persad-Bissessar stressed that while Trinidad and Tobago remains committed to the principles of regional integration within the 52-year-old bloc, she cannot stay silent about what she describes as the “dysfunctional and chaotic state” of CARICOM’s current governance. Rejecting suggestions that the dispute could be resolved through the Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), the Prime Minister noted that Port of Spain does not recognize the CCJ as its final court of appeal, and her administration has no plans to change that status.

In a striking comment that underscores the depth of the rift, Persad-Bissessar said her government is completely unbothered by the prospect of Trinidad and Tobago being expelled from CARICOM over the dispute. “They are free to do as they wish. I’m not bothered. We have already made our position clear; they are free to expel us from CARICOM if they wish to do so. They are free to work with us if they wish to do so. Life goes on in Trinidad and Tobago, with or without CARICOM. The world stops for no one,” she said.

She added that Trinidad and Tobago is already proactively diversifying its trade partnerships to reduce reliance on the CARICOM single market, with ongoing efforts to build new economic ties with markets across the Middle East, South America, India, and Africa. The Prime Minister also clarified that the nation will continue to participate in future CARICOM meetings, so long as its representatives are not uninvited from key proceedings.

On Tuesday, May 12, 2026, Guyana’s governing People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC) publicly praised a forceful statement from U.S. Republican Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar backing Guyana’s territorial sovereignty amid escalating tensions with Venezuela over a long-running border dispute. Salazar, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs, made her remarks on the social platform X one day after Venezuelan interim president Delcy Rodriguez delivered a provocative address to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) during oral hearings on the merits of the border case.

During her Monday appearance before the United Nations’ highest judicial body, Rodriguez doubled down on Venezuela’s rejection of any ICJ ruling on the validity of the 1899 Arbitral Tribunal Award that established the current land boundary between the two South American nations. She insisted that the 1966 Geneva Agreement—signed by Venezuela and the United Kingdom shortly before Guyana gained independence—remains the only legally valid framework for resolving the dispute through bilateral negotiations. Rodriguez warned that any ICJ judgment on the 1899 award would not resolve tensions, stating, “No judgment by this court on the territorial controversy will provide a definitive solution acceptable to both parties. On the contrary, it will exacerbate the differences between the parties, and will lead the parties to entrench themselves in their respective positions, distancing them from the practical, satisfactory and mutually acceptable settlement to which they committed in 1966 by signing the Geneva agreement.”

Salazar pushed back sharply against Rodriguez’s comments and her repeated threats to Guyana’s territorial integrity in her X post. She argued that Rodriguez mistakenly believes she can manipulate U.S. President Donald Trump the same way she and former ousted Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro “tricked and destroyed” Venezuela. “Delcy should stop threatening Guyana and start learning from it,” Salazar wrote. She also warned Rodriguez against sending confidential correspondence to President Trump, emphasizing, “You don’t deal with him through secret letters while trying to steal territory from a free and sovereign nation like Guyana.”

Beyond addressing the border dispute, Salazar commended Guyana’s prudent management of its new oil wealth, noting that in less than a decade, the South American nation has set a stark contrast with Maduro’s regime in Venezuela. “Unlike the Maduro regime, Guyana didn’t rob its people. They managed their oil wealth responsibly, created a sovereign wealth fund, and saw GDP per capita quadruple in just five years,” she added.

As of Tuesday, Guyana’s national government had not issued an official public response to Salazar’s social media statement. The ICJ is on track to issue its binding ruling on the border dispute by the end of 2026 or in the first quarter of 2027, a decision that will shape the future of regional security and territorial claims in northeastern South America.