GEORGETOWN, Guyana — Guyana’s opposition party has won a bitterly contested general election, ending a prolonged political standoff that had crippled investment and heightened ethnic tensions in the small South American nation. The opposition candidate Mohamed Irfaan Ali was sworn in on as Guyana’s president on Sunday, shortly after the national electoral commission said he had beaten the incumbent, David Granger, by just over 15,000 votes, a margin of more than 3 percent. The governing party said it planned to challenge his victory, alleging fraud. As president, Mr. Ali will manage billions of dollars in new oil revenues, which have transformed Guyana, an impoverished former British colony with fewer than 800,000 people, into the world’s fastest-growing economy this year, despite a slumping global oil market. The power struggle has been amplified by the newfound wealth pouring in from offshore oil fields where production began in January.

Source: International New York Times August 02, 2020 22:07 UTC