HGP Nightly News – The battle over Guyana’s stalled Parliament escalated sharply on Monday as the Forward Guyana Movement (FGM) announced it will refuse to participate in the 2026 Budget presentation unless a Leader of the Opposition is first elected, warning that the country is being pushed toward constitutional dysfunction under the guise of normal governance.
Finance Minister Ashni Singh has announced that the National Budget will be presented on January 26, but FGM says it will not take its seat in the National Assembly while the constitutional process to elect an Opposition Leader remains deliberately unresolved. According to the party, proceeding with a budget in a Parliament that is structurally incomplete strips the exercise of legitimacy and undermines democratic accountability.
FGM argues that while the government may have the numerical strength to read the Budget, it lacks both moral and constitutional justification to treat the process as routine business. The party contends that the governing PPP is attempting to “manufacture normalcy” by advancing parliamentary business while refusing to complete the constitutional architecture required for Parliament to function fully.
Central to FGM’s objection is the Office of the Leader of the Opposition, which is funded through parliamentary subventions. The party has questioned how allocations for that office could have been determined in the absence of an elected Opposition Leader, asking who was consulted and what assumptions were made in the budgeting process when the government has declined to facilitate the required election.
“This has nothing to do with personalities or private finances,” the party stated. “It is about whether Guyana will operate as a constitutional democracy or whether governance will be reduced to rule by majority numbers alone.” FGM further warned that continued delays in convening Parliament and allowing the election of an Opposition Leader amount to a direct disrespect of both the Constitution and the electorate.
The party said the situation reflects a troubling pattern in which constitutional requirements are treated as optional rather than binding. As a result, FGM says it will not attend the Budget sitting or listen to the Finance Minister’s presentation unless the Speaker of the National Assembly first convenes the meeting required for non-government MPs to elect a Leader of the Opposition. Participating under the current circumstances, the party insists, would lend legitimacy to what it views as a deeply flawed process.
The 13th Parliament last convened on November 3, 2025, when government and opposition Members of Parliament were sworn in. Since then, no sitting has been called to facilitate the election of an Opposition Leader, despite repeated calls from opposition parties, civil society voices, and international partners.
FGM maintains that before a single budget figure is read, Parliament must be allowed to function as the Constitution intends. Until then, the party says, it will not participate in what it describes as a hollow exercise of power divorced from democratic principle.
