Executive Member of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Anil Nandlall has released a letter he wrote to Chairperson of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), retired Justice Claudette Singh, formally complaining about the results declared for Region Four by Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo.
The letter was released after spokeswoman of the election body Yolanda Ward had initially told the press that no official complaint had been filed against Mingo’s declaration.
Ward, however, later clarified on Sunday night that complaints against the method used by Mingo to tabulate the ballots in order to arrive at a declaration of results were officially filed with the Commission.
Following her initial statement to the press, however, Nandlall, in a missive to Ward, said that not only had he dispatched a letter of complaint to Singh but reminded also of litigation challenging Mingo’s declaration of the results of votes cast for Region Four in the March 2nd, 2020 General and Regional elections.
In the letter, which was written to Justice Singh and dated March 13th, Nandlall referenced court orders delivered on March 11th by acting Chief Justice Roxane George-Wiltshire to an action filed by Reaaz Holladar, who had first challenged Mingo’s declaration.
In her ruling, Justice George-Wiltshire had found that there was substantial non-compliance by Mingo with the manner in which he had declared the results.
The court had found, among other things, that the returning officer did not declare the results in accordance with the Representation of the People Act, as it had not been done using the Statements of Poll (SOPs).
Against this background, the Chief Justice had made absolute injunctions, which Holladar had previously sought, nullifying the declaration made by Mingo.
Nandlall, in his letter to the Chairperson, reminded also of contempt proceedings which had been filed against Mingo.
Recalling in his letter that Justice Singh had herself attended the hearing at which the Chief Justice made the orders granted to Holladar, Nandlall opined that two fundamental principles emerged from the ruling.
On this point he noted that Justice George-Wiltshire had said that the SOPs had to be used as the basis for ascertaining and adding up the votes cast in favour of each list of candidates and that this had to be done in a transparent manner for party representatives as well as local and international observers to see.
Mingo had been blasted for using a spreadsheet instead of the SOPs for arriving at the results of the votes cast for Region Four, and that those present were not able to observe what was being tabulated and how.
As a result both observer groups had said that the declaration could not be regarded as credible, while adding that it had not been done in a transparent manner either.
Nandlall also referenced these complaints in his letter to Justice Singh.
The missive goes on to detail Nandlall bringing to the Chairperson’s attention, also, that even a second declaration made by Mingo had violated the Chief Justice’s order and the Representation of the People Act.
He complained of Mingo employing the same flawed method to declare the results, but using what appeared to be an excerpt of a document purporting to be an SOP which was this time projected on a screen.
Nandlall complained also of the entire process being carried out at such a speed which “made it impossible for anyone to completely observe.”
On this point the PPP executive opined that neither the Chief Justice’s orders nor Section 84 of the Representation of the People Act had been followed or obeyed and requested the Chairperson to instruct Mingo not to publicly make any declarations for Region Four nor to make any such communication to the Chief Election Officer (CEO).
According to the letter, Nandlall made a further request of Justice Singh not to receive from the CEO the report of his ascertainment of the results of the elections and that the Commission not declare and publish any results of the elections.
He concluded his letter by saying that if any of the processes he outlined were allowed to be done, “they would be in contempt of court and unlawful, illegal, null, void and of no effect.”
Following Ward’s initial interview with the press on Sunday, Nandlall said that to assert that Mingo’s declarations were not the subject an objection was clearly fallacious.
He had then expressed hope that the public record be corrected forthwith.
Ward would later clarify that the Commission had in fact received Nandlall’s March 13th letter complaining about Mingo’s declarations.
The spokeswoman in her clarification noted that from her research, the court proceedings prior to the recount process, in which GECOM was named a party, can also serve as a notice of complaint against Mingo.
With the credibility of the elections marred in controversy, a national recount of votes is currently underway.
