Carter Center Flags Financial De-Risking of WIN Candidates and Steep Turnout Drop in 2025 Report

By Marvin Cato | HGP Nightly News

GEORGETOWN, GUYANA – In a highly revealing section of its final report on Guyana’s 2025 General and Regional Elections, the Carter Center has raised red flags over the treatment of political candidates affiliated with the newcomer party, We Invest in Nationhood (WIN). The report details unprecedented financial and professional targeting of WIN members, while analyzing a sharp drop in overall voter turnout.

These findings shed new light on the unique pressures surrounding the 2025 electoral cycle, where WIN completely upended Guyana’s traditional two-party duopoly.

According to the international observer mission, a troubling trend emerged immediately after WIN’s official list of candidates was approved in July 2025. Three local commercial banks abruptly closed the personal bank accounts of several candidates, party members, and associates. Concurrently, several candidates were summarily dismissed by their private-sector employers after their names were made public on the party’s list.

The Carter Center acknowledged that local banks were operating with extreme caution, given that WIN’s presidential candidate, Azruddin Mohamed, was under United States government sanctions. However, the Center heavily criticized the broad actions taken against affiliated individuals:

• Risk-Based vs. Broad Action: International banking standards favor a targeted, risk-based approach rather than sweeping, punitive actions against individuals based strictly on their political association.
• Chilling Effect on Democracy: The Center warned that overcompliance with foreign sanctions creates a dangerous precedent that could discourage citizens from participating in political life out of fear of losing access to basic banking services or livelihoods.

Despite facing severe institutional and financial headwinds, WIN secured a historic victory in the 2025 polls, fundamentally reshaping the country’s legislative landscape:

• Popular Vote: WIN captured 109,075 votes, representing 24.9% of the valid ballots cast.
• Parliamentary Presence: The newcomer party won 16 seats in the National Assembly.
• Official Opposition: The performance solidified WIN as the official opposition political party, marking the first time in Guyana’s history that neither the PPP/C nor the PNC/R (or a PNC/R-led coalition) held that designation.

The Turnout Collapse and Opposition Fragmentation

While WIN successfully mobilized a massive portion of the electorate, the Carter Center noted that a significant number of Guyanese opted out of the democratic process altogether.

This 5% decline in total votes (and a steep 14-point drop in turnout) was not uniform across the country. The Carter Center reported that the most dramatic collapse in voter participation occurred in District 4 (Demerara-Mahaica), traditionally the country’s largest opposition stronghold.

The report concluded that this pattern points directly to voter disengagement triggered by opposition fragmentation. While WIN successfully attracted many former APNU voters, a substantial segment of traditional opposition supporters chose to stay home rather than switch their allegiance to the new political force.

Ultimately, the Carter Center summarized the 2025 cycle as a technical success with troubling systemic undertones. While election day administration and digital tabulation centers performed remarkably well, the targeting of WIN candidates and the historic low turnout raise urgent questions about the true state of political freedom, voter motivation, and civic confidence in Guyana.