…GECOM chair says did not submit report based on her advice

AMID multiple news stories ridiculing the Chief Elections Officer, Keith Lowenfield, Chairman of the commission, Justice Claudette Singh has rebuffed claims that he did not submit his report in defiance of her order.

“It would be remiss of the GECOM’s Secretariat not to provide clarity on the reason why the Chief Election Officer (CEO), Mr. Keith Lowenfield did not submit the National Recount of GRE 2020 results report to the Chairperson, Justice Claudette Singh on 18th June, 2020,” GECOM said on Saturday. According to GECOM, contrary to the numerous articles and opinions published in the media and social platforms, the Chief Elections Officer has completed the report and was preparing to submit same to the Chairperson by 13:00hrs on 18th June, 2020. However, before he could have done so, he was served by court Marshalls with a ‘Notice of Motion’ which was filed in the Court of Appeal. According to GECOM, in light of the foregoing, the CEO visited the Office of the Chairperson with his report and the ‘Notice of Motion’. “It was then that Justice Singh indicated that she was also served with the said document and explained that “as a former officer of the court’ she could not disregard the ‘Notice of Motion.’ As a consequence, the CEO’s report was not submitted to the Chairperson at that time.”

The motion, which was filed by a private citizen, Eslyn David, is intended to restrain the Chief Elections Officer from submitting to the Guyana Elections Commission his elections Report, under Article 177 (2) (b) of the Constitution, containing votes which are not credible within the meaning of Order No. 60 of 2020.

The Chief Elections Officer, in his Report on the National Recount, had informed the Elections Commission that as a result of the anomalies and instances of voter impersonation identified throughout the 10 Electoral Districts, the elections, it would appear, did not satisfy the criteria of impartiality, fairness and compliance as required by the Constitution and Representation of the People Act. Justice Singh, however, while acknowledging that the issues were grave, ordered the CEO to compile his Report so as to pave way for the declaration of the results, on the grounds that only the High Court, under Article 163 of the Constitution, has jurisdiction to pronounce on the validity of an election. When Lowenfield submitted his summary/report of the national recount on June 13, noted that, undoubtedly, cases of irregularities, anomalies and voter impersonation were present in the elections. Though the count of the ballots puts the PPP/C in the lead, he outlined 4,864 cases of voter impersonation and more than 2,000 anomalies which have affected over 200,000 votes. The CEO also stated that the presence of these cases hinders him from determining that the elections were credible. He concluded that the election: “… clearly does not appear to satisfy the criteria of impartiality, fairness, and compliance with provisions of the Constitution and the ROPA Cap 1:03.”