Oil masters, election watchers, schemers

Aug 24, 2025 Editorial

Kaieteur News – There is one voice in Guyana that is conspicuously silent, that of ExxonMobil. In the general and regional elections that serve as Guyana’s equivalent of a circus, the American oil emperors have laid low. They are too busy counting their profits from the hundreds of thousands of barrels shipped out daily. From the viewpoint of any major oil company, or any multinational in any business in any Third World country, it is a boon when the citizens of a host country are trapped in elections passions. The foreign companies pretend to be partners, pretend they are neutral, and pretend at having no preference about which group wins the elections. Their pretenses fool few, the games that they play fail to deceive anyone, because when locals fight among themselves, there’s only one winner.

While the time and energy of voters are vested in elections, they may think that they are marching to the winner’s circle. That is when the foreign companies are best positioned. The more that the citizens in a country battle among themselves, the freer the rein, the bigger the space, that the so-called foreign partners have to operate. Whatever vigilance, whatever monitoring, there was before, those energies are not as strong as during non-elections times. When citizens bicker about which is the better group to run the country, or who is the better leader, in the heat of elections, that’s to the profit of the foreign profiteers.

During elections in Guyana, citizens do not care as much about oil or gold or bauxite. True, Guyanese want a better deal from their oil bonanza, but which group has made that a priority in the present elections? The coverage of ExxonMobil’s activities, how well it is or isn’t policed, and how it is profiting at the expense of Guyanese, are all nonissues. Media coverage is focused on elections developments that are rarely short of a new angle, or what impinges on democracy’s ideals. Though the Guyana elections haven’t quite reached the stage of cover-to-cover media presentations, the oil stories are few and far between. From a daily blast in some form or fashion on how the nation’s oil wealth is being harvested for a few cheap dollars, the oil almost doesn’t exist, given how much it features in these elections.

That can only be to the advantage of ExxonMobil, easing the sharp criticisms on it, lulling the distrusts of Guyanese about its operations. The independent media, already tiny to begin with, is too enmeshed in the lures of elections, have only so much space and so many hands. The offshore oil companies and the onshore gold companies have the floor for themselves. The parties competing in the elections all make big speeches about how much they will spend on the people and do for them. But not one of them has made oil and the profits that should come from it to citizens their showcase issue. The parties that have said something about oil and getting more from it, have been careful to do so in a roundabout way. The oil company masters quietly approve, rest comfortably, as their activities stay intact.

While Guyanese go into elections overdrive, they have little left to prioritize pressuring the oil companies prospering off of them. The same companies that insult with cheap gifts, and deceptions about being good partners and democracy. The same companies that love leaders that talk about sanctity of contract, and ‘guarantee’ judicial decisions. The same companies that favor the few benefiting at the expense of the poor, while they themselves walkaway with the nation’s treasures. Guyana is the kind of rich terrain in which multinationals like ExxonMobil profit. When the people are divided and distracted, the companies reap handsomely. While the leaders drag each other down, the companies identify with the one that greenlights their massive exploitations, while their own people live in poverty. When a nation such as Guyana has so much riches, this is where multinationals, especially oil companies, divide and rule, corrupt the leaders and people and profit from doing so. The oil majors like what they see and hear, know how to pauperize the people, how to capture their wealth, while they rage over elections.

Discover more from Kaieteur News

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Editorial, election watchers, Oil masters, schemers

Latest News