Guyana blame Venezuela for the attack on election officials before voting

Guaana security forces say that a boat carrying election officials and polls was shot “from the Venezuelan Beach” in the disputed Essequibo area.

The police and the defense force in Guena said in a joint statement that the accident occurred on Sunday, before the general elections of the South American nation on Monday.

The security forces said that the patrol that was accompanying officials “immediately returned fire” and no one was injured.

Venezuela did not comment on the incident, which comes amid a regional conflict between the two countries on the oil -rich Essequibo region.

The British Guyana and Guiana are managed before, for more than a century of 159,500 square kilometers (61,600 square miles) managed by Guena, and British Gianna before that, for more than a century.

But Venezuela is putting a claim in the region, and in December 2023, the government of President Nicholas Maduro held a referendum as he supported more than 95 % of the Venezuelan who voted for its demand.

Guyana took the matter to the International Court of Justice, but Venezuela opposed the court’s authority to judge.

The statement issued by the security forces did not say Joyan who may have been behind the shooting, but they insisted that the shots were fired from the Venezuelan lands.

He added that the polls on the boat were safely delivered to the distance polling stations that were allocated.

Voters in Guena choose President of the next five years, as well as members of Parliament.

President, President Irfan Ali of the Progressive Party (PPP/C), is running for a second term and opinion polls indicate that he is the candidate.

It faces a challenge by the Auberton Norton from “A Partnership for National Unity) and Azuddin Mohame, a billionaire trying to disrupt the two -party Guyana system.

Opinion polls before the start of the vote was the preferred President, which was equipped by the revenues from the economic boom that Joyana is witnessing after the discovery of huge oil deposits abroad.

The country of 800,000 people has seen its gross domestic product almost in the five years since 2020, according to the International Monetary Fund figures.

President Ali used revenues to improve the infrastructure in Guana, and to invest in building roads and education, including attendance at state universities for free.

But his critics say that oil revenues have been incompatible with benefiting groups that traditionally support the Ali party, an accusation that the president denied.

The political scene has been divided into a large-scale decade on ethnic lines, where members of the Indian-Swalish society traditionally support voters PPP/C and Afro-Swagian voters who mainly support the National People’s Congress, which is part of the coalition led by Ubreon Norton.

The party or coalition that wins the largest number of votes gets the president’s offering.

While President Ali said he was confident of his re -election, his party had only one seat in the outgoing legislative body.

Analysts have indicated that the campaign by the third -party candidate Azuddin Mohamed can break the applicable voting patterns and produce a sudden result.

Polling cards are closed at 18:00 local time (22:00 GMT).