Chief Election Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield has disregarded a directive by the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Chairperson Claudette Singh that he use the results of the national recount to submit a final report on the March 2 polls.
While the recount showed a clear victory for the opposition PPP/C, Lowenfield today instead submitted a report reflecting a win by the incumbent APNU+AFC. He has reported 236,777 votes for APNU+AFC, 229,330 for the PPP/C and 5,091 for a joint slate of three new parties.
By his latest count, the APNU+AFC coalition would secure 33 of the 65 seats in the National Assembly, the PPP/C would get 31 seats and the joint list one seat.
It is unclear on what basis Lowenfield produced his numbers. The figures are similar to those that would result from using the falsified numbers from the March 13 declaration by Region Four Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo, which had necessitated the move to a recount, but they do not correspond. The now discredited March 13 results showed 237,371 votes for the incumbent and 229,510 for the PPP/C.
Lowenfield submitted the result after he was instructed to do so yesterday by the GECOM Chair for a scheduled meeting at 11 am today on the results.
While the opposition-nominated members were present at GECOM’s headquarters this morning for the meeting, the government-nominated commissioners were all absent.
Government-nominated commissioner Desmond Trotman later told this newspaper that he had asked for the meeting to be rescheduled owing to concerns he had and which were shared by his fellow commissioners. However, he could not account for their absence.
Today’s meeting had to be aborted as there was no quorum.
Opposition-appointed commissioner Sase Gunraj later told reporters that Lowenfield submitted a report to the Commission that did not comply with the recount report.
He described it as “eye-pass” of the Commission. Gunraj said that flawed report submitted by Lowenfield yesterday showed a victory for APNU+AFC. The recount showed a victory for the PPP/C.
Gunraj was confident that a way will be found to have the recount results declared when GECOM next meets.
The absence of the GECOM commissioners would again underline their determination to thwart the declaration of the recount result.
An incensed Gunraj said the new Lowenfield report does not reflect the numbers generated by the recount exercise. He said it was a “clear and flagrant violation” by Lowenfield of two letters by the GECOM Chair. Gunraj said that the GECOM Chair has not yet provided a response.
