In a Page One comment on June 25th, Stabroek News stated the following in relation to the Chief Election Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield: “As we have said before, Mr Lowenfield must be summarily dismissed from his position. The elections process cannot be properly brought to a conclusion if he remains in place. We urge the GECOM Chair to take the requisite steps. She must also publicly affirm her commitment to certify the results of the painstaking recount as the final outcome of the 2020 general elections”.
Fifteen days later Mr Lowenfield remains a major impediment to the declaration of a final result based on the recount of votes that had been agreed to by the duplicitous caretaker President Granger in an agreement brokered by the then CARICOM Chair, Mia Mottley with the Opposition Leader, Mr Jagdeo.
The temerity of Mr Lowenfield to seek “clarification” yesterday from the GECOM Chair, Justice (Ret’d) Claudette Singh on her clear instruction that he produce a report in accordance with the applicable laws is breathtaking.
Notwithstanding his brazenness, Ms Singh has given him up to today at 11 am to repair his insubordination. If he doesn’t, as many believe he won’t, Ms Singh must take matters into her own hands and have the process completed. One person engaged in perverse behaviour must not be allowed to hold a four-month-old election process hostage. The chair’s experience on the bench and the advice she has received from the various advisers over the period including from the Commonwealth should enable her to discharge her obligation to the people and declare a result.
Mr Lowenfield’s feigned puzzlement as to the nature of the report that he is to submit is a despicable mocking of the lucid decision of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) on Wednesday which found his discarding of over 115,000 votes as execrable. One wonders whether he attempted to seek “clarification” from anyone on that abomination.
The CEO thankfully is not a constitutional lawyer nor is he required to be one at this juncture of the process. He need not worry himself with whether there is a collision between the constitution and legislation in the Chair’s request. The GECOM Chair and her counsel are no doubt better equipped to make the determination that Mr Lowenfield now sanctimoniously seeks.
Had Mr Lowenfield displayed such punctiliousness in the approach to his work then he might have been able to make a quick arrest of the corruption wrought on March 4th and 5th when the District Four Returning Officer Mr Clairmont Mingo was caught red-handed fixing figures in favour of the incumbent APNU+AFC. Instead, Mr Lowenfield hastily shepherded the monstrous work of Mr Mingo not once but twice without any remorse or inquiry. He even had the audacity to imply in his missive yesterday to the Chair that recourse could be had to the extant declarations including the one by Mr Mingo which has been repudiated by the five international observer missions and local watchers.
The standoff created yesterday by Mr Lowenfield is the last redoubt in the campaign by senior GECOM officials and APNU+AFC operatives to steal the March 2nd general election from the people. It will not be allowed to happen. APNU+AFC – read PNCR and its handmaidens – has now been marooned in a vast sea of isolation. Its plotting has been nakedly exposed and it is still not too late in the day for Mr Granger to concede defeat, leave office and spare the country more of the vulgarities like that conjured yesterday by Mr Lowenfield. Enough is enough. The country awaits the declaration of the winner based on the recount result.
