State resources and campaign financing

Jun 26, 2025 Editorial

Kaieteur News – The hallowed grounds of Guyana’s premier venue for international conferences- Arthur Chung Conference Centre- will be transformed into a dance hall to host the PPP/C’s fundraiser dinner this weekend.

It is not a State event or a national celebration, but a political party’s election campaign fundraiser. The event was initially scheduled to be held somewhere on the Success Public Road, East Coast Demerara, but has now been dramatically moved to the conference centre.

We can only imagine the type of activities that will accompany such a gathering. The endless rum drinking and partying are not befitting the venue, where this country hosts its Parliament. When the conference centre was gifted to this country by the Chinese Government, it was clear that it would be used for local and international conferences.

Today, the ruling party has been using it as it wishes to host a range of non-state activities, including its congress and now a fundraiser. It cannot be that the governing party is short of alternative venues to host their fete- after all, they have control over quite a few NDCs on the ECD that have control over the community grounds, and if the rainy weather is the problem, go somewhere else. The PPP does not spare any opportunity to speak about excesses under the Forbes Burnham era, yet here they are doing the same. Only recently, the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) had cause to draw parallels between the said Burnham era and that of the PPP of today. The GHRA observed that under the dictatorial phase of the Burnham presidency, subordination of the State to the whims and wishes of the ruling party was symbolised by the flying of the PNC party flag over the Court of Appeal. “Similar levels of control over the administration of justice are pursued by the current Government. Rather than the flag, however, control is symbolised in the refusal to confirm the appointments of the Chief Justice and the Chancellor and the interference at all levels of the Guyana Police Force (GPF).”

We have seen in the past the said venue being used to host weddings for PPP officials and other private gatherings. Guyanese would be interested in knowing whether the party is paying a rental to use the venue; if not, then all the entertainment promoters and other citizens should be allowed to use the centre’s ground for their barbecue and fish fry.

The use of the centre for the PPP’s dinner also brings into focus the need for robust campaign financing laws that can put a check on the incumbent government’s abuse of State resources for its elections campaign. Already, questions have been raised about the flurry of outreaches by the government, thinly disguised as official work, but are really electioneering, utilising State resources.

Following the May 2015 General and Regional Elections, it was observed by the Carter Centre that gaps in the law on campaign financing have created a weak distinction between the resources of the ruling party and the resources of the State. Incidentally, this weak distinction had existed between State resources and those of the then-ruling party at the time, the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C).

The report noted that the absence of public funding for political parties had impaired the ability of smaller parties to compete. It was stated that it will be of great significance for future electoral fairness if laws are introduced on party finances to create greater transparency. It was considered in the report that it is a given that political parties and their candidates need financing and adequate access to resources in order to campaign and make their platforms known and available to the populace. As such, the Centre said that Guyana should put measures in place to prevent corruption, particularly in the context of campaign financing. This is important, since the country would have signed on to the United Nations Convention against Corruption and the Inter-American Convention against Corruption. The report had also noted that Guyana’s legal framework is weak on this matter and has contributed to inequalities between political parties. This report was released in 2017 and September 1, 2025 will mark two general elections since the Carter Centre’s observation and recommendations, and neither the PPP nor the PNC has sought to take action to fix the problem.

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Arthur Chung Conference Centre, Campaign financing, Editorial, state resources

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