Speaker of the National Assembly, Manzoor Nadir, has announced that a meeting of elected Opposition Members of Parliament will be convened at 10:00 hrs on Monday, January 26th, to facilitate the election of a Leader of the Opposition.
The announcement was made during a live national address following repeated requests from members of the Parliamentary Opposition for the process to be initiated.
Nadir made it clear that while he has fulfilled his constitutional responsibility by convening the meeting, the choice of who is elected rests entirely with the opposition members themselves. “If Opposition Members of Parliament feel it morally right to elect an international fugitive, then the stain on our Parliament and our country rests solely with them,” Nadir said.
Further, he explained that the election of the Opposition Leader will take place before the presentation of the 2026 National Budget bythe Minister within the Office of the President with responsibility for Finance, Dr Ashni Singh. Guyana’s 13th Parliament convened on November 3, 2025, at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre following the September 1 General and Regional Elections, during which 65 Members of Parliament were sworn in.
Of that number, 36 MPs represent the governing People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C). The remaining seats form the Parliamentary Opposition, with 16 MPs from the We Invest in Nationhood (WIN) party, 12 from A Partnership for National Unity (APNU), and one from the Forward Guyana Movement (FGM).
Those opposition members are constitutionally mandated to elect one of their own to serve as Leader of the Opposition.
Meanwhile, during his address, the Speaker also disclosed that he had intended to convene the meeting upon his return to Guyana after representing the National Assembly at the 28th Conference of Speakers and Presiding Officers of the Commonwealth, recently held in New Delhi. “I intended upon my return… to convene the meeting for the election of the Leader of the Opposition, regardless of how that group would be,” Nadir said.
He described the current situation as unprecedented within Guyana’s Westminster parliamentary system and pushed back against what he termed attempts at intimidation.
“I am not going to be intimidated by any backyard or front yard bully,” the Speaker stated, adding that pressure both inside and outside of Parliament would not influence his decision-making.
As the address was being delivered, protestors gathered outside the Speaker’s residence,e calling for immediate action to convene the meeting.
Nadir confirmed that the Clerk of the National Assembly has been instructed to summon all Members of Parliament for the January 26 sitting, which will be dedicated solely to the election of the Leader of the Opposition. “I have asked the Clerk of the House to convene all the Members of Parliament for 10 a.m. on the 26th of January. This is for the election of a Leader of the Opposition,” he said.
