Guyana rejected Venezuelan claims that Guyanese voters took part in elections to make the resource-rich Essequibo province the 24th state of Venezuela.
The voting for officials for the 160,000 km² (61,780 mi²) province that Caracas calls Guayana Esequiba was organized by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s government to pursue a long-standing claim in the province that forms the western two-thirds of Guyana.
The region “is an integral part of the nation,” Maduro said.
Guyana’s vice-president Bharrat Jagdeo dismissed videos the government claimed were shared by Venezuela’s vice-president Delcy Rodrigues showing what were purported to be Guyanese boarding a boat to travel from Guyana across the Essequibo River into Venezuela to vote in Sunday’s elections.
But the video was of “a boat operating on Guyana’s Demerara River taking passengers from Georgetown to Vreed-en-Hoop,” Jagdeo said.
“It is dishonest and a sign of desperation when the vice-president of Venezuela has to use a fake video to support false claims that people were crossing the border to vote in the elections,” Jagdeo said.
The US also dismissed Venezuela’s elections for a governor and legislative council for the Essequibo Region.
“The US rejects all attempts by Nicolas Maduro and his illegitimate regime to undermine Guyana’s territorial integrity, including this latest sham election in the Essequibo region,” the US Bureau for Western Hemisphere Affairs said yesterday.
The long-running tussle over Essequibo has intensified since 2016 when US major ExxonMobil made the first of several finds in the offshore Stabroek block that partially overlaps the disputed acreage.
ExxonMobil leads a consortium that is producing 640,000 b/d of crude and Guyana’s government has forecast a doubling of output by 2027 with the commissioning of more projects on the block
