Government-appointed Gecom Commissioner, Sase Gunraj yesterday insisted that he was stopped on March 5th 2020 by then Deputy Chief Election Officer (DCEO) Roxanne Myers from proceeding along the second floor of the Ashmins building where Gecom had set up a command centre during the 2020 elections.
Under cross-examination before the elections Commission of Inquiry, Gunraj said that the second floor of the building was used as an office for commissioners, an area for logistics, for the IT department, and an area for refreshments.
Attorney at law Nigel Hughes yesterday continued to cross-examine witnesses on behalf of his client, Myers, who on Tuesday appeared before the Commission and declined to testify.
Gunraj said that then Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo, proceeded from the first floor to the second floor “presumably to the third floor because I was behind him and I was prevented from going further by Ms. Myers.”
Questioned by Hughes as to if there were security measures in place restricting different persons from different levels of the building in the form of tags, Gunraj said yes but stressed that “there was no tag necessary for the second floor.”
According to Gunraj, Myers told him he couldn’t go further thus preventing him from access to the second floor.
Meanwhile, Gunraj said that he reported what transpired at a subsequent meeting of the commission, and he was then questioned about Myers being given an opportunity to address the allegation made. Gunraj said, “I don’t recall.”
However, Hughes then pointed out that a letter was sent from Gecom to Myers inviting her to show cause as to why her services should not be terminated and it had included the allegation.
The Commission’s counsel, Senior Counsel Sophia Chote, who is leading evidence in the inquiry, then noted that the document Hughes referred to was not in evidence before the COI.
Meanwhile, Hughes then questioned Gunraj about the allegation that Myers “ushered Dr. (Karen) Cummings into a room” at the command centre. According to Gunraj, he was present on the second floor where the room was.
Executive Secretary for the PPP/C, Zulfikar Mustapha, who now serves as Guyana’s Minister of Agriculture, also appeared before the commission yesterday and testified to sending several letters to Gecom’s former Chief Election Officer, Keith Lowenfield and Clairmont Mingo, then Returning Officer for District Four.
Mustapha was also questioned by the commission about him being present during the meeting between Cummings, then the acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, with diplomats and international observers at the command centre.
According to Mustapha, the meeting ended “abruptly”, and asked specifically if he recalled which Gecom official entered the room to meet the minister which resulted in the meeting ending, Mustapha said that it was Myers.
“She just took a phone and took it to the former minister (Cummings) and said there was a call and the meeting abruptly ended… And the minister just walked out”, Mustapha noted.
Declarations
Meanwhile, Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Anil Nandlall who also appeared yesterday confirmed that the first declaration came from Mingo on March 5, 2020, before a significant body of votes from District Four was tabulated.
A court matter was then filed which impacted how events unfolded following that, Nandlall noted.
Touching on an incident surrounding ballot boxes, Nandlall said that on elections night he received information that at a geographic area that falls under his supervision, presiding officers had instructed that certain statutory documents which were supposed to be put into the ballot boxes be placed into envelopes and sent to Mingo. “I was told about 40-odd ballot boxes were affected.”
Nandlall said he immediately made contact with Mingo who eventually told him he was aware of the issue and there was some level of breakdown and the presiding officers were ill-advised. He said Mingo confirmed that the documents were coming to him and he would ensure they were put into the right place.
Nandlall said he questioned whether the then Chief Election Officer Lowenfield was aware of this, and was assured of the same as such he (Nandlall) thought the issue was handled and moved on. “After that night I felt Lowenfield accepted and the documents were in his receipt…”
However, he said during the National Recount, the APNU+AFC turned this into an issue claiming that certain statutory documents were missing from the boxes. At that stage, he said he immediately approached Lowenfield and he accepted noting that he remembered confirming the documents were in Gecom’s possession.
Nandlall said, following this he had an interaction with the press who questioned him about the issue and he explained the entire matter, but to his surprise, he was then admonished by Lowenfield who claimed that Nandlall was taking private conversations between the two to the press, “I pointed out to him that can’t be a private conversation, that’s the nation’s business, that’s important statutory instruments.”
Never missing
Nandlall stressed, that he was given the assurance by both Lowenfield and Mingo that the documents were never missing as they never left Gecom’s custody.
After the court proceedings where it was stated clearly that the Statement of Polls (SOPs) must be used for the tabulation, Nandlall said he went back to the Ashmins building where he saw Mingo using a spreadsheet “doing the identical thing which the Chief Justice told him not too.”
He said, he and Mustapha immediately pointed this out after which Mingo stopped the exercise and moved the process to Gecom’s headquarters at Kingston.
At that location, Nandlall said Mingo moved from a “spreadsheet to a bedsheet”, as according to him a bedsheet was set up to project supposed SOPs which resulted in the persons observing not being able to see properly. “But nobody could verify because they situated the screen so far away from where the observers were seated you couldn’t see with your naked eye.”
He also noted that new rules were implemented at that location, persons were limited from entering and barriers were set up to block persons from going close to the area.
Meanwhile, he said after concluding the tabulation exercise, Mingo made a second declaration which led to court proceedings being filed for it to be set aside.
Notably, Nandlall pointed out that for that specific court matter, they were informed that the High Court was being fumigated resulting in the officials’ having to move to the magistrate’s court.
At that stage, eventually, an agreement was struck that a National Recount would be done.
On March 17, 2020, Ulita Moore, a candidate for the APNU+AFC, filed legal proceedings challenging the decision for a recount. After extensive court hearings, the matter reached the Court of Appeal which allowed the recount to be done.
Meanwhile, Nandlall said that certain actions were taken by Gecom which were frustrating the process of the recount. He said they were moving slowly in the transition from Gecom to the venue identified for the recount.
He said, it was also a “nightmare” to get them to move all the ballot boxes, and they had to ready the place for the recount “but even before that they fumigated the entire building and told us no one can go in there for I don’t know for how many days or weeks until it was certified by some public health expert…”
Questioned whether any reason was given for not using Ashmins building, Nandlall said he was not aware as the decision was made by Gecom.
In terms of the observers, Nandlall was asked whether the then government objected to the presence of national and international observers in the recount and Nandlall said yes.
The Carter Center’s request to return for the recount was rejected, and Nandlall said they have always wanted a transparent process as possible, “and a process that would have allowed for the widest and keenest possible scrutiny.”
According to him, all of their requests asking for observers and for the recount to be streamed live were rejected.
However, he said, Caricom had then appointed a special team to observe the recount and the then opposition welcomed it as “at least we had some form of scrutiny to the process”.
Meanwhile, the recount was done via a formula that was unanimously decided upon by Gecom which showed that the PPP/C had won the 2020 elections. He stressed, that the recount results matched the SOPs which were in possession of his party.
He noted, that a report from the Caricom team said that the recount was done “fairly, transparently” and that the results generated from the recount should form the basis for the final declaration.
When asked outright who won the elections, Nandlall stressed, “The PPP won significantly.” He added, “The statements of polls retained in the custody of the PPP matched almost number to number with the declared results, the results generated by the recount… As it matched every other declaration made by the returning officers for the nine regions other than Mingo.”
However, the elections inquiry then heard that Lowenfield at that stage did not give a report which reflected the figures of the recount. “The CEO engaged in an exercise where he reduced 460,362 valid votes recounted to 185,270 by 60% thereby disfranchising 275,092 electors.”
After the reduction, APNU+AFC had 125,010 votes while the PPP had 56,627 votes.
Nandlall also said that the APNU+AFC made a series of allegations that the Caricom team rejected and deemed baseless, and unsubstantiated.
However, he said, Lowenfield looked at the report of the allegations and rendered the 275,092 votes invalid despite the report from the Caricom team.
Nandlall said a court had said that Lowenfield in that situation wore the cap of an investigator, judge, and executioner all in one with the CCJ telling him he is not a “lone ranger”, words Nandlall said which still ring in his head.
Questioned whether it could have been a case that Lowenfield misinterpreted the law and thought he had the authority to act in that case, Nandlall pointed out that the 2020 elections were not Lowenfield’s first elections. He said, “He presided over two elections and he got it right.”
Between June 13, 2020, and July 9, 2020, the CEO produced various reports to Gecom all of which were not accepted by Gecom. According to Nandlall, those reports were never accepted because Gecom had instructed Lowenfield to use the results generated from the recount “and he repeatedly refused to do.”
Asked whether Lowenfield provided any reason to the public as to why he refused to do such, Nandlall said “No.”
In another report, Nandlall said Lowenfield used the Court of Appeal as his validator and discounted 115,844 votes “throwing them out as invalid” and producing another result that was not accepted by Gecom.
Following more court proceedings including matters before the CCJ, on July 9, the Chairwoman wrote to Lowenfield asking that he produce the final report and he still produced a report of his own choice.
“So you have the highest court of the land guiding the CEO, telling him that he is wrong, vacating his report, telling him how he should go about preparing his report, and yet the gentleman does otherwise” ignoring the results generated by the recount, Nandlall noted.
Once more Gecom refused the report and following other proceedings eventually on August 2, 2020, Lowenfield produced the report using the recount results which were accepted and declared PPP/C the winner of the 2020 General and Regional elections.
Meanwhile, Nandlall was also asked about a declaration being signed by Mingo and then Minister Volda Lawrence, and he said he was aware of this but that he wasn’t aware of any provisions of the law allowing the same.
