Jagdeo not ruling out referendum on oil contract

Nov 08, 2024 News

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-but wants GECOM to focus on 2025 elections

Kaieteur News- Vice President Jagdeo has not completely ruled out the idea of having a referendum to renegotiate the 2016 oil deal but he told reporters on Thursday that he wants the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to place its focus solely on the 2025 elections.

Speaking at his weekly press conference at Freedom House on Robb Street, Jagdeo said that the opposition has found a new cause to speak on and this is the referendum. “So one of the new causes… the people who signed the 2016 contract want referendum now, they and the WPA. They want to obfuscate the key issues, they don’t want to talk about delivery of house lots to people, fulfilling their dream of owning a home, they don’t want to talk about lower mortgage rates for people, they don’t want to talk about assistance in building, like core homes or young professional homes.”

He stressed that the opposition is not speaking about the expansion of healthcare, the new water treatment plants nor the iron removal plants and a number of other achievements of the government but they are desperately looking “to find some issue to mobilise themselves around. So I hear it’s referendum not they want to talk about referendum on thing…this is the same party that signed the 2016 agreement.”

The VP made it clear that his government will not be caught in that trap as “GECOM must focus on preparing for the 2025 elections…They would love to have GECOM or someone else particularly GECOM divert their attention to something else. We are not falling into that trap at all. So that’s the only thing that they can come up with right now.”

On November 5, the Kaieteur News reported that the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) on Monday said that it supports the call for a referendum on the 2016 oil contract with ExxonMobil ahead of the 2025 General and Regional Elections. This was revealed by Dr. David Hinds, presidential candidate of the party during the party’s virtual press conference. “WPA notes recent calls for a referendum on the 2016 oil contract, while we do not oppose such move, we strongly feel that such a referendum must also cover the distribution of the oil resources to the people and a form of governance to be adopted as we transition into a petro state,” Dr. Hinds said.

The party is of the view that the issues are interrelated and therefore the government’s contract with ExxonMobil and its partners should not be examined separately from the government’s “political social contract” with the citizens of Guyana.

“Support for such a referendum is therefore conditional. First, WPA recommends that the 2016 oil contract, the Buxton Proposal and shared governance be put on the ballot. Second, there must be consensus on the questions being put to the electorate, in order to avoid the exercise becoming a partisan political football and an ethno-racial census,” he told reporters.

For its part, the Alliance For Change (AFC) said it supports calls for a referendum on Exxon’s 2016 oil deal with Guyana.  Chairman of the party, David Patterson in response to a question posed by Kaieteur News made it clear that the AFC believes that a referendum should be held prior to the 2025 elections. However, Patterson made it clear that oil and gas is not the lone issue that requires a referendum. He pointed to the need to make amendments to certain clauses in the Constitution and those proposed amendments should be put to a vote via a referendum.

“We (the AFC) would support a referendum to do all of those things including matters of oil and gas, (being) on a referendum (even) prior to the elections,” the AFC Chairman said. He reminded that the AFC is part of the Constitution Reform Committee and matters inclusive of the country’s newest natural resource must be discussed.

“Maybe it will be a good idea to include not only the recommendations from that constitutional committee (and), it will be a good idea to include other issues that we do think is necessary. Not only the oil and gas… the issue of death penalty, of course which I feel strongly about in the sense that it’s something that should not on our books,” Patterson said. The AFC member said too that if the government is as confident as it claims then it should be inclined to “have one referendum to change all these things before the elections.”

Jagdeo had initially said that a referendum being held at the same time of the 2025 General and Regional Elections would complicate the voting process. A referendum is a general vote by the electorate on a single political question that has been referred to them for a direct decision.

Jagdeo believes that conducting a referendum at the same time of the elections could complicate matters. A number of developed and developing countries all over the world have held referendums at the same time as national elections.  These include the United States. Jagdeo said that as leader of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), he does not want to complicate the 2025 electoral process. According to him, there is also the belief that the opposition would go in favour of the referendum to complicate the process.

 (Jagdeo not ruling out referendum on oil contract)

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• AFC, GECOM, Jagdeo, oil contract, PPP/C, referendum

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