–campaigning on achievements nothing unusual
–President Ali says, highlights subjective, partisan and completely biased evaluation

THE European Union’s election mission (EU-EOM) to Guyana’s 2025 general and regional elections has drawn criticism for what President Dr. Irfaan Ali has described as a ‘noticeable absence of substantive analysis’ as he defended the People’s Progressive Party/Civic’s (PPP/C’s) focus on its achievements during the recent campaign leading to the September 1 polls.

Dr. Ali, during a live broadcast on Wednesday said highlighting the government’s achievements was nothing unusual for an incumbency seeking re-election and argued that the EU-EOM overlooked essential context in their assessment.
The EU-EOM final report on the country’s polls was made public on Tuesday.
While the report acknowledged polls were ‘peaceful and well-run,’ Chief Observer Robert Biedron stated that the country’s elections took place under ‘deep political polarisation’ from political parties, with the mission observing what it described as “an uneven playing field and undue advantage by incumbency.”
President Ali questioned the credibility of the mission’s findings, suggesting that the composition and methodology of the mission’s observations may have influenced the report’s tone and conclusions.
He argued that observer groups such as the EU must be held to higher standards when selecting in-country personnel, claiming that several individuals involved in the process had known associations with figures who openly hold partisan positions.
He believed that portions of the report were inadequate and “lacked analysis.”
According to the President, this raises legitimate concerns about the report’s independence and the extent to which some affiliations may have shaped the final assessments presented to the public.
“If you go through some of the staff that were hired in this process by the EU, their own staff that influenced the outcome of the report, you would have to question those persons’ independence because they’re associated with, or are in association with, persons who would have expressed partisan positions on many issues.”
While the EU-EOM report was positive about procedural systems, President Ali forcefully rejected the claims of ‘undue advantage by incumbency.’
These, he said, are unfounded and rooted in complaints from political participants rather than objective observation.
“This comment is not based on any facts. It is based primarily on complaints by political participants in the elections and their affiliates.”
“So incumbency comes with positive and negative, but because of the performance of the People’s Progressive Party Civic government, we delivered on our commitment… That’s not an incumbency advantage. That is a commitment that the government made in its manifesto of 2020 to 2025, that the incumbent would have delivered on, and the incumbent has a duty and responsibility like any other country in the European Union,” President Ali added.
COMMITMENTS
President Ali pointed out that many of the initiatives highlighted in the report as “advantages” had been longstanding commitments, fully documented in the government’s fiscal packages and manifesto.
“This is not an incumbency problem. We have a responsibility to speak about our success. What kind of system will deny an incumbent to celebrate his success, speak about his success to use its great management of the economy and added revenue to expand social programmes those were our commitment,” he said, adding:
“If you went back to my test of 2020, and the budget, you would see that those are commitments that we made. So, I just wanted to make that very clear, that I find that statement objectionable.”
TRANSPARENCY, REFORM EFFORTS AND OMITTED CONTEXT
The President also hit back at the report’s note of ‘insufficient regulation of campaign finance’.
To this end, the President noted that the mission failed to acknowledge the work that is ongoing to modernise the country’s electoral laws.
“We said, the process of enhancing the laws, the process of modernising the laws for election sand advancing these laws would form part of the constitutional reform that is ongoing long before the elections,” he said.
Dr. Ali noted that the government has acknowledged that there are still a number of areas that need to be addressed, and as such, the constitutional reform process is ongoing.
The government, he noted, had met with the EU-EOM during their initial assessments and visits to the country leading up to the polls.
“Nowhere in the report point [s] to the fact that there is an ongoing constitutional reform process…the analytical aspect of this statement points to the inexperience and points to the fact that it has no basis in reality.”

The president also objected to the EU’s focus on media bias, stating, “We have statistics to show that there are many private media entities that were 80 per cent negative against the People’s Progressive Party Civic, some 90 per cent negative. So, it is not favouring the ruling party. That’s… not the case.”
‘PEACEFUL AND WELL RUN’
President Ali reaffirmed his governments to the principles of democracy and the rule of law. He emphasised that Guyana’s 2025 polls were “free and fair,” a sentiment echoed by numerous electoral missions observing the process.
“The report points to the fact that the elections were peaceful, well run, but that was how they described Election Day. Elections were peaceful, calm, and orderly,” he said.
The EU had deployed some 50 observers across the country to observe both the campaign and Election Day proceedings.

In its final report, which has also since been handed over to the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), the EU noted that there were significant improvements in some legal frameworks and reforms, most notably, the real-time online publication of Statements of Poll, which marked significant improvements for the transparency and traceability of results.
The President further thanked the EU-EOM for their participation and called for a re-evaluation of the methodologies, signalling Guyana’s openness for continued collaboration.
“We look forward to continuing our work with the European Union and the electoral observation commission as we work towards building a stronger and more resilient electoral system here in Guyana, as we want to see all across the world,” he affirmed.