– Jagdeo says party does not intend to ‘just roll over and die’
– argues that recount already produced valid votes

By Lisa Hamilton

THE People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) is refusing to accept the ruling of the Court of Appeal on how the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) should treat with its elections declaration and intends to take its contention to the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) though the Constitution states that, on such matters, the Court of Appeal’s decision is final.

In an online press briefing on Monday following the court’s decision, PPP/C General Secretary Bharrat Jagdeo accused APNU+AFC of seeking to “invalidate valid votes” and maintained that GECOM cannot invalidate any of the votes coming out of Phase One of the national recount which put his party in the lead.

The court has ruled that Article 177 (4) of the Constitution grants it jurisdiction to hear the Eslyn David v. GECOM case and that GECOM has the responsibility to establish the “final credible count” as the words “more votes cast” according to the Article should be interpreted to mean “more valid votes cast.” Furthermore, Article 177 (4) indicates that the decision of the Court of Appeal on such matters is final. It states: “The Court of Appeal shall have exclusive jurisdiction to hear and determine any question as to the validity of an election of a President in so far as the question depends upon the qualification of any person for election or the interpretation of this Constitution; and any decision of that Court under this paragraph shall be final.”

VOTES ALREADY VALID

However, in his press briefing on Monday, Jagdeo contended: “We’ve made it public that this decision on jurisdiction is appealable and may very well end up in the Caribbean Court of Justice.” Though the report of the Chief Elections Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield has highlighted 4,864 cases of voter impersonation and more than 2,000 anomalies, the PPP/C general-secretary accused the APNU+AFC of seeking to invalidate votes his party believes are valid. “On the question of validity of votes, clearly the Court of Appeal could not mean that Lowenfield or any single political party, and in this case, APNU, can solely determine what valid votes are. This has to be determined based on a process,” he argued. “We are contending that all along this is provided for in our laws and total valid votes have already been determined by the commission.”

Explaining his position, he turned the public’s attention to the Statements of Recount (SORs) coming out of Phase One of the recount process which he said are headed with the words ‘Valid Votes Cast.’ He contended that only a court can invalidate any of the said votes. Holding up one of the certificates, he stated: “That is the title of the certificate for the 10 districts, it is titled ‘Valid Votes Cast for Each Party of Candidates’ and as we go down the list it says ‘Total Number of Valid Votes Cast.’ Now, this is the evidence. This is what APNU is trying to invalidate.”

STILL CONFIDENT OF VICTORY

He discredited the summarised Observation Reports submitted by the CEO which led Lowenfield to state that the presence of anomalies, irregularities and voter impersonation hinders him from determining that the elections were credible and in accordance with the Representation of the People Act. The PPP/C general-secretary instead iterated that the certificates coming out of the recount already speak to the valid votes which should be counted and anything else should be dealt with through an elections petition.

“My contention is that when the court interprets ‘more votes than’ and it says ‘more valid votes than,’ there actually is no issue with it because in every case and in the recount itself, all of the people were counting valid votes,” he said. Anticipating a declaration from the elections commission in its favour, members of the PPP/C have already erected billboards congratulating PPP/C presidential candidate, Irfaan Ali and PPP/C prime ministerial candidate Mark Philips on victory.

Ali has also declared himself “President-elect” and participated in several interviews with regional television stations declaring himself as victor prior to the conclusion of the four-phase recount. In response to the court’s ruling, former Attorney General Anil Nandlall stated on his Facebook page: “…the Court of Appeal ruling, today, changes nothing in that the votes that GECOM has recounted, tabulated and totalled are only valid votes. As a result, all that the CEO is now left to do, is to allocate the seats to be awarded to the respective parties, based upon the total valid votes cast in their favour and identify Irfaan Ali as the duly elected President of Guyana.”

Meanwhile, former Minister of Education Priya Manickchand agreed: “…the Court of Appeal did not say anything that we don’t already know. That is that valid votes are what must count. The chair has already told us how a vote can be invalidated. The claim that it is not valid must be examined by a court of law with rules of evidence and where the people against who the claims are made must be heard.” The PPP/C general-secretary said that his party has no intention to now simply “roll over and die”; he said that the party would be consulting with its lawyers about whether the matter should be appealed to the CCJ.