Jagdeo spends 30 minutes talking about Azruddin Mohamed at press conference

Jul 18, 2025 News

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…says “who could resist”

Kaieteur News – General Secretary of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), Bharrat Jagdeo, on Thursday spent nearly 30 minutes discussing Azruddin Mohamed, the presidential candidate for We Invest in Nationhood (WIN), during the opening of his press conference at Freedom House.

The discussion of Mohamed, who was sanctioned by the United States Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), covered a range of subjects including Mohamed’s political party, the support he received on Nomination Day, and a recent incident in which Mohamed allegedly paid a woman $500,000 not to pursue a criminal matter involving a former WIN associate. However, it should be noted that the conversation around Mohamed continued into the question-and-answer segment.

Jagdeo began by commenting on Nomination Day, which was held last Monday at Umana Yana, where thousands rallied behind Mohamed as he submitted WIN’s List of Candidates for the 2025 General and Regional Elections scheduled for September 1.

Jagdeo said, unlike WIN, the PPP did not pay supporters to show up. He argued that while WIN claimed it had thousands present, he estimated it was fewer than 1,000 people. Regarding WIN’s list, Jagdeo said he could not identify a single prominent individual and described it as “mediocre.” “Win has come up with a list, clearly they had a hard time…nobody of any prominence, not a single person of any prominence,” he said.

Jagdeo also commented on some of the candidates listed by WIN. “You’re talking about policymaking and running the country…that is the sort of mediocre list that they put up, several people have a criminal past,” he said.

He further criticised what he said was the media’s leniency toward Mohamed. Referring to an interview Mohamed gave on Nomination Day, Jagdeo said, “People just got a little, little peak into this emptiness that occupies his head… as I said before I wanna get a journalist pass to go to his launch of his manifesto because I doubt he’d invite me.”

He continued, “You wanna bet it wouldn’t happen, you wanna bet the press conference that he said very soon will never happen…”

He also addressed a recent incident involving Bradley Sampson, also known as ‘Doggie’, a former key WIN organiser, who allegedly assaulted a 29-year-old woman over a payment issue on Nomination Day. Since the release of a video of the incident, WIN has distanced itself from Sampson.

After the police issued a wanted bulletin for Sampson on Wednesday evening, around midnight several vanloads of police officers went to Mohamed’s home reportedly to “talk” with him in relation to the incident. On Thursday, Mohamed surrendered to the police accompanied by his lawyers. After his release, he told reporters that the police alleged he paid the woman $500,000 not to pursue the matter. Mohamed denied this, calling the move “political persecution” tied to his new political ambitions.

For his part, Jagdeo pointed to the police statement which alleged that Mohamed held the woman against her will for over an hour in the presence of armed security guards and threatened her to take the money and drop the matter. He said, “This guy seems to have some connection in the police force, that’s unbelievable, they don’t treat him the same way they treat ordinary citizens.” He also expressed hope that the police would seize the weapons from those guards.

Despite dedicating about half an hour to Mohamed, Jagdeo insisted the PPP does not consider him a threat and maintained that A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) remains their main opponent. “Right now he doesn’t really matter to us in the PPP, he is not gonna make no difference because people have seen through him…,” Jagdeo said.

He then added, “I’m sorry today I had to spend so much time on this guy because…normally I don’t spend time but this week who could resist it, I couldn’t after seeing that performance outside of Umana Yana.”

Additionally, during the question-and-answer segment, Jagdeo was asked several questions about Mohamed.  He was asked how confident he was that the government remains in control of the police force and not Mohamed. In response to this, he acknowledged the police have been doing good work but noted there are still rogue elements.

On how the government would deal with Mohamed if he gains a seat in Parliament, Jagdeo pointed out that there is no immunity for parliamentarians in Guyana, saying, if a parliamentarian commits a criminal act, he/she will still be prosecuted if charged.

Further, when asked to respond to comments by political party leaders that highlighted former President of Suriname Dési Bouterse functioned as Suriname’s head-of-state despite his involvement in criminal activities, Jagdeo noted that Bouterse was not sanctioned by OFAC.

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• Azruddin Mohamed, Bharrat Jagdeo, Guyana Elections, Politics, PPP, win

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