General elections were held in Guyana on 1 September 2025. The result was a victory for President Irfaan Ali and the governing People's Progressive Party/Civic, who won 36 seats, an increase of three from the 2020 election. The declaration of the result was made by GECOM on 7 September 2025 at midnight, and Ali was inaugurated later that day.
The We Invest in Nationhood political party, led by US-sanctioned businessman Azruddin Mohamed, which was formed only three months prior to the election, rose to second place, replacing the People's National Congress Reform-led A Partnership for National Unity alliance as Guyana's primary opposition, capturing two electoral districts, including Upper Demerara-Berbice, which had long been recognized as an immovable stronghold for the PNCR. It was the first time since its foundation that the PNCR had failed to become either the governing or main opposition party.
Background
The People's Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) returned to government following the 2 March 2020 general election, in which they defeated the governing APNU+AFC coalition. The PPP/C's presidential candidate, Irfaan Ali, became the 10th President of Guyana. However results were not finalized for four months, due to allegations of vote rigging following an initial APNU+AFC win, until international pressure led to a recount and PPP/C's win.[1][2]
In the final results for 2020, the PPP/C won 33 seats and 50.69% of the vote, giving it a majority of one in the National Assembly. The APNU+AFC received 31 seats and 47.34% of the vote, a loss of two seats. The remaining seat was awarded to the LJP—ANUG—TNM alliance, which received a combined total of 1.13% of the vote.[3]
The Constitution of Guyana limits the term of the National Assembly and the president to five years. In accordance with this term limit, Ali dissolved the 12th National Assembly on 3 July 2025 and announced elections for 1 September.[4][5]
Electoral system
The 65 members of the National Assembly are elected using closed listproportional representation from a single nationwide 40-seat constituency and 10 sub-national constituencies with a total of 25 seats. Seats are allocated using the Hare quota.[6]
The president is elected by a first-past-the-postdouble simultaneous vote system, whereby each list nominates a presidential candidate and the presidential election itself is won by the candidate of the list having a plurality.[7]
Campaign
Major parties contesting
The PPP/C opted to re-nominate the ticket of Irfaan Ali and Mark Phillips, with the party's General Secretary Bharrat Jagdeo citing the accomplishments of the administration during the term.[8] On 18 June 2025, the largest opposition alliance in the previous parliament, APNU, announced PNCR leader Aubrey Norton would be their presidential candidate, with Member of Parliament Juretha Fernandes as his running mate.[9]
Electoral alliances
Three alliances were formed by opposition parties ahead of the election:
On 30 May 2025, A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and the Working People's Alliance (WPA), previously a member of the APNU, signed a coalition agreement. The WPA had left the coalition in 2020, dissatisfied by its low number of candidates on the joint list[10][11]
On 29 June 2025, We Invest in Nationhood (WIN), led by businessman Azruddin Mohamed, announced a joinder agreement with A New and United Guyana. Under the agreement, ANUG would effectively merge with WIN, adopting its logo, presidential candidate and joining the list, while still retaining its right to exist as an individual party.[12]
A coalition agreement was adopted on 1 July 2025 by Forward Guyana, The People's Movement and the Vigilant Political Action Committee where the parties agreed to contest the election as one entity, opting to label the joinder the "Forward Guyana Movement".[13]
In a pre-election statement, the Carter Center noted the size of Guyana's voter list, in which there were 757,000 registered voters out of a total population of 794,000, and criticized the failure of authorities to release the findings of the 2022 population census, calling this a "regrettable lapse" which "obscures public understanding of basic population demographics and their potential relation to the size of the voter list".[37]
After his team visited 342 polling stations on election day, former Jamaican prime minister Bruce Golding, the head of the OAS mission, said that overall, things had gone smoothly and that election officials had acted with professionalism.[38]
The observer mission from the European Union, headed by Polish MEP Robert Biedroń, described election day as "peaceful" but expressed concern about the ruling PPP/C leveraging its incumbency advantage to distort the fairness of the process. It also highlighted a lack of transparency and accountability caused by inadequate campaign finance rules.[39]
Results
As results were finalised on 3 September, it became clear that incumbent president Irfaan Ali had won a second term, with his PPP/C party winning eight of the ten regions, over 55% of the popular vote, and 36 Assembly seats.[40][41][42] In what was described by the Stabroek News as a "meteoric rise", newcomer party We Invest in Nationhood came second, with 24% of the votes cast and 16 seats. The previous opposition Partnership for National Unity alliance came third with 17% of the vote, with 12 seats, down 9 from the previous election. The last Assembly seat went to the Forward Guyana Movement and will likely be taken up by its presidential candidate, Amanza Walton Desir.[40][43] A partial recount of votes in Regions 4 and 5, requested by APNU, began on 4 September and concluded the following day with unchanged seats allocation.[44][45]
The Elections Commission announced the final results, including seat counts, on 6 September and President Ali was sworn in for the 2025–2030 term the following day.[41][46]
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