Sawt Falasteen - Guyana votes amid oil boom, Venezuela tensions

As some 750,000 eligible voters began casting their ballots for one of six presidential hopefuls, Venezuela said its neighbor was "trying to create a war front."

This came after Georgetown on Sunday publicly accused Venezuela of firing shots on a boat transporting election materials in the oil-rich Essequibo region which both neighbors lay claim to.

Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez on Monday rejected the claims and said they were intentionally provocative.

For his part, Guyana's President Irfaan Ali said his country "will support anything to eliminate any threat to our security" in response to a question about the deployment of US warships to the Caribbean near the Venezuelan coast.

Guyanese voters, meanwhile, had other issues on their mind in one of Latin America's poorest countries.

According to a 2024 report by the Inter-American Development Bank, 58 percent of Guyanese lived in poverty despite an oil boom that has quadrupled the state budget to $6.7 billion in 2025 since production began in 2019.

"We need 100 percent change in our country. So we are voting for a change," Mary Welchman, a 48-year-old nurse, told AFP at a polling station in the capital Georgetown.

Center-right incumbent Ali is seeking a second five-year term at the helm of the People's Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C).

He and other candidates have vowed to put more money in the pockets of Guyanese, improve health care and education services and increase wages -- mainly by exploiting the oil reserves of which the country has more than any other per capita.

Guyana, with its breakneck pace of economic growth at 43.6 percent in 2024 -- the highest in Latin America -- aims to boost oil output from 650,000 barrels per day to over a million by 2030.

Most of its crude reserves are in the Essequibo region, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana's territory but is also claimed by Venezuela in a dispute that has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago.

Essequibo has been administered by Guyana for over 100 years.

- 'Three great enemies' -

Three candidates led opinion polls ahead of Monday's vote: Ali, opposition candidate Aubrey Norton of the leftist People's National Congress Reform (PNCR), and multi-millionaire populist Azruddin Mohamed, who founded his own We Invest in the Nation (WIN) party.

Norton was the first to cast his ballot Monday at a school on the outskirts of the capital, proclaiming that "bar any irregularities," he was sure to emerge victorious.

"Guyana has three great enemies. One, Venezuela. Two, the PPP (ruling party). And three, poverty. We will rid this society of all our enemies," added Norton.

Ali, for his part, said he was "very confident about... victory."

Polls opened for 12 hours at 6:00 am (1000 GMT) for a vote fraught with logistical challenges.

Ninety-five percent of the territory of Guyana, an English-speaking country of some 850,000 people, is covered by tropical rainforest.

Voting has traditionally taken place along ethnic lines, with Guyanese of Indian descent supporting the PPP/C and those of African origin backing the PNCR.

Results are expected by Thursday at the latest.

O.Mousa--SF-PST