Irfaan Ali, in office since 2020, is the first Guyanese leader to benefit from the South American country’s massive oil reserves, which he leveraged to claim a second presidential term.
Guyana was recently found to have the biggest known crude reserves per capita in the world, and the state budget has quadrupled to $6.7 billion since production began in 2019.
It has allowed Ali to boost spending on infrastructure and social programs, and to campaign on promises to “put more money in your pocket.”
At the age of 45, he claimed a second five-year term Wednesday before official results from Monday’s election were published.
Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro calls Ali “a puppet of ExxonMobil,” the main oil operator in English-speaking Guyana — a former British and Dutch colony.
Undeterred, Ali has pressed on with promises of development that will benefit all Guyanese — among the poorest of Latin Americans.
“We have delivered. You can trust us,” he repeated on the campaign trail, pointing to numerous infrastructure projects, tax cuts and expanded social programs.
His detractors accuse Ali of window-dressing and “ribbon-cutting.”
