The Private Sector Com-mission (PSC) yesterday urged the suspension of Chief Election Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield from any further participation in the election process charging that the results of the March 2 elections he presented on Tuesday, which give the APNU+AFC a majority of the votes cast, are “clearly fraudulent…if not criminal.”
Lowenfield on Tuesday submitted to the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) what he claims to be a report of the “valid and credible votes” cast at the March 2 polls with the numbers showing a victory for the incumbent APNU+AFC after invalidating almost 25% of the votes cast. The report, which was intended to lead to the declaration of a final result, has since been put on hold by the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). The official recount showed victory for the opposition PPP/C.
In a statement yesterday, the PSC referred to the letter send by Lowenfield to GECOM Chair, retired Justice Claudette Singh, on Tuesday.
The business organisation said that it has no hesitation in pointing out that the results provided “are clearly fraudulent and represent a blatant, if not criminal, attempt” by Lowenfield “to manipulate the results of the elections in favour of the APNU+AFC and to subvert the very responsibility of the Commission of which he is an officer and bound to serve professionally.”
The PSC said that instead of carrying out the request of the Chair of GECOM in her letter of 16th June, 2020, to use “the results of the Recount for the consideration of the Commission”, in his Re-port, Lowenfield attached a Table which he “arbitrarily and unilaterally seeks to disenfranchise some 115,787 or 25% of the persons who legitimately cast their votes in a completely valid process on Election day and purports to assign the allocation of seats to the contesting parties on the basis of votes cast which bear no relationship whatsoever to the matrices produced from the State-ments of Recount or the Certificate of valid votes tabulated at the Recount”.
The statement said that the PSC had become increasingly concerned at the CEO’s “biased and unlawful action” from the time he “readily embraced the fraudulent tabulation submitted by Clairmont Mingo of the District 4 results and incorporated them in the Report delivered to the Chairman of the Commission and held in abeyance in the Gazetted Order for (the) National Recount.”
It condemned “in the strongest possible terms” the most recent act of Lowenfield “which we believe to be tantamount to criminal malfeasance.”
The PSC urged GECOM to immediately suspend Lowenfield from any further participation in the election process until such time as a full and independent investigation can be held into his conduct.
“The Private Sector Commission expects and looks forward to the Chair-man of GECOM conforming to the Order of the Caribbean Court of Justice restraining the Commis-sion from declaring the results of the Guyana Elections of the 2nd March until the CCJ issues final orders following the hearing and determination of the questions raised before it by way of notice of application from the PPP General Secretary Bharrat Jagdeo and presidential candidate Mohamed Irfaan Ali,” the statement added.
The PSC said that it continues to believe and expect that GECOM will use the results from the matrices produced from the Statements of Recount recording the valid votes and summarised in the District Certificates of Tabulation to declare the results of the Recount leading to the swearing in of Mohamed Irfaan Ali as President of Guyana.
The PSC also rapped Lowenfield for stating to Singh that in his report he was acting on the guidance of the Guyana Court of Appeal. The PSC said the Court of Appeal gave no such guidance or any direction to Lowenfield and there was also a three-day stay on the decision.
“The Court of Appeal, in arriving at its decision, in fact, has rejected five (5) of the six (6) Orders sought by Eslyn David, amongst them the Order seeking to restrain Lowenfield `from complying with the directions of the Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission’ and has further rejected the Order seeking to restrain Lowenfield from submitting `an elections report under Section 96 of the Representation of the People Act without the Guyana Elections Com-mission determining the final credible count and/or the credibility of the results of the General and Regional Elections’, yet, this is exactly what Keith Lowenfield, acting in his capacity as Chief Election Officer, has attempted to do in his submission to the Chairman of the Elections Commission”, the PSC said.
