…orders CEO to submit elections report based on recount
…threatens to substitute him with Myers

By Svetlana Marshall

THE Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Justice (Ret’d) Claudette Singh on Monday scrapped the March 2020 declarations made by the 10 Returning Officers, in an attempt to force the hands of the Chief Elections Officer (CEO), Keith Lowenfield to submit an Elections Report based on the votes tabulated during the National Recount.

Failure to submit an Elections Report reflective of the Certificates of Recount by 14:00hrs today (July 14) would result in the Chief Elections Officer being substituted by the Deputy Chief Elections Officer (DCEO), Roxanne Myers, Justice Singh warned.

The disclosure was first made by People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C)-nominated Elections Commissioner Sase Gunraj, and later confirmed by GECOM’s Public Relations Officer Yolanda Ward. The declarations made in the 10 Electoral Districts between March 3 and 13 showed a win for the A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) at the General and Regional Elections. According to those declarations, which were not invalidated by the Courts, the ruling Coalition secured 236,777 votes while the PPP/C raked in 229,330. The other parties: A New and United Guyana (ANUG), Change Guyana, Liberty and Justice Party (LJP), People’s Republic Party (PRP), The Citizenship Initiative (TCI), The New Movement (TNM), and the United Republican Party (URP) secured approximately 9,000 votes.
However, as a result of an allegation of electoral fraud, the Elections Commission placed them in abeyance to pave way for the National Recount, which commenced on May 6, 2020 for a period of 33 days. In the not-so-distant past, GECOM had repeatedly said that though the declarations were in abeyance, they were not invalid, and would only be replaced following another around of declarations. To date, no other declarations have been made by GECOM.

At a meeting of the Elections Commission on Monday (July 13), the Chairman of the Elections Commission invalidated the 10 Declarations after hearing arguments from the Government and Opposition-nominated Elections Commissioners on the Elections Report, which was submitted by the Chief Elections Officer on Saturday, July 11, 2020. That Elections Report, the third submitted since the March 2 General and Regional Elections, was reflective of the 10 Declarations made in March, though Justice Singh had instructed that the report be compiled during the data from the National Recount.

“It is my decision that the results of March 13 declaration cannot be used at this time, since these were replaced by the tabulation of the votes at the recount which was hailed by all to be a transparent and credible process,” Justice Singh reportedly said while issuing her decision.

Moments after exiting the meeting of the Elections Commission, Gunraj told reporters that Justice Singh issued the decision at around 14:30hrs, and in doing so took into considerations not only their arguments, but the July 8 decision of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) in the case Irfaan Ali and Jagdeo v Eslyn David and others.
“She emphasised as well that the Court of Appeal in no way, shape or form, howsoever or where-so-ever in that judgment set aside Order 60, its effect or any aspect of it,” the Elections Commissioner recalled while indicating also that the declarations, made in accordance with the Representation of the People Act, have been replaced by the Certificates of Recount generated based on Order No. 60, the legal instrument used to facilitated the National Recount. According to Gunraj, the Chairman’s decision is a step in the right direction.

ELECTIONS REPORT

Meanwhile, in addressing the Chief Elections Officer’s “failure” to submit an Elections Report based on the National Recount, Justice Singh, according Gunraj, said that though Article 177 (2) (b) indicates that the CEO must advise the Chairman of the Elections Commission on the Elections result, the CEO is not higher than the Commission, and as such the Commission is not “subservient” to him. Lowenfield, therefore, must adhere to the dictates of the Elections Commission, Gunraj told reporters.

Further, Justice Singh, according to Gunraj, also referenced Paragraph 24 of the summary of the CCJ’s ruling, in which the Court said: “Unless and until an election court decides otherwise, the votes already counted by the recount process as valid votes are incapable of being declared invalid by any person or authority.”
While Gunraj told reporters that in Paragraph 24, the CCJ ruled that the results of the National Recount must be used for the declaration of the result for the 2020 General and Regional, such a ruling could not have been found in that paragraph. However, Paragraph 37 of the full judgment reads: “Both the allocation of seats in the National Assembly and the identification of the successful presidential candidate are determined on the sole basis of votes counted and information furnished by Returning Officers under the Representation of the People Act.”

Notwithstanding that aspect of the ruling, Justice Singh maintained that an Elections Report must be submitted in accordance with Article 177 (2) (b) and Section 96 of the Representation of the People Act, but most importantly the Certificates of Recount, which were generated during the National Recount. “In light of that, she has ordered the CEO to present a report to the Commission, using the recount numbers by 2pm tomorrow (today July 14),” Gunraj reported. He, however, expressed disappointment that the GECOM Chair did not go “the full 9 yards” and complete the electoral process, but has placed the process back into the hands of Chief Elections Officer. Failure to comply with the Chairman’s orders, however, would result in the Chief Elections Officer being substituted by his deputy.