over 90 witnesses will testify, special prosecutor says
SPECIAL PROSECUTOR Darshan Ramdhani, KC, who is representing the state in the electoral fraud case involving former District Four (Demerara-Mahaica) Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo; former People’s National Congress/Reform (PNC/R) Chairperson Volda Lawrence; PNC/R activist Carol Smith-Joseph and four others, has expressed his readiness to commence the trial.
The trio, along with Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) employees Sheffern February, Enrique Livan, Denise Bobb-Cummings and Michelle Miller, are before the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court for allegedly defrauding the electors of Guyana by declaring a false account of votes for the 2020 elections. They are facing a number of charges and are currently before Senior Magistrate Leron Daly at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court.
On October 3, a case management conference (CMC) will be held to set the timeline for the matter.
During a live programme on social media, Ramdhani provided an update.
“When we go to the court in October, we’re also going to say that we’re in a state of readiness, and we’re hoping that the court will deal with any other preliminary issues that can arise very quickly,” Ramdhani said.
He explained that on that date, timelines, including a commencement date will be set. It was disclosed that the prosecution has over 90 witnesses to call to the stand to testify.
“The prosecution has a ton of evidence to lead. We have the certified copies of the Statements of Poll (SoPs), we have the videotapes, we have the witnesses on ready and we know the courts have been trying their best to deal with these matters as judicially as possible,” he said.
Ramdhani along with attorneys-at-law Glen Hanoman, Mark Conway, Ganesh Hira, Arudranauth Gossai, and George Thomas are all on record for the state.
Attorneys-at-law Nigel Hughes, Eusi Anderson, Ronald Daniels and Konyo Sandiford are representing the defendants.
It is alleged that Lawrence, Smith-Joseph, February, Livan, Bobb-Cummings and Miller between March 2 and August 2, 2020, at Georgetown, conspired with former Chief Elections Officer Keith Lowenfield and Mingo to defraud the electors of Guyana by declaring a false account of votes cast in the March 2, 2020, General and Regional Elections.
Additionally, Miller was slapped with a separate charge which alleged that between March 3-5, 2020, at the GECOM command centre at Ashmin’s building on High and Hadfield Streets, Georgetown, she conspired with persons to defraud the people of Guyana by not using the figures from the Statements of Poll for the purpose of ascertaining the figures to make the declaration of the results for the said District Four, thereby resulting in a false declaration being made for the said district.
The defendants’ attorneys had previously argued for the case to be heard in the High Court, given the nature of the proceedings which they claimed might infringe on their client’s rights to a fair trial within a reasonable time.
Nevertheless, the Chief Magistrate ruled that despite the voluminous evidence and the complexity of the case, the court has been proceeding with hearing of the case “expeditiously.”
The case was thereafter transferred to Magistrate Daly.
In August 2021, Mingo, along with Lowenfield and his then deputy Roxanne Myers, had their employment terminated by the commission.
INFLATED RESULTS
It is alleged that the trio inflated or facilitated the inflation of results for Region Four, the country’s largest voting district, to give the APNU+AFC Coalition a majority win at the polls when, in fact, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) had won by 15,000 votes.
Those who rejected the results filed several legal challenges which ended up before the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), Guyana’s highest appeal court.
A lengthy recount of the votes eventually declared victory in favour of the PPP/C, and Dr. Irfaan Ali was sworn in as the President of Guyana on August 2, 2020.
In April 2023, the Presidential Commission of Inquiry (CoI) into the events of the 2020 General and Regional Elections found that there was collusion and collaboration between senior GECOM officials to divert votes to the APNU +AFC instead of safeguarding and preserving the integrity of the electoral system.
Chairman Stanley John and commissioners — former Chancellor, Carl Singh and Senior Counsel Godfrey Smith made these findings based on evidence from the many witnesses who had testified, along with the reports of the international observers.
“…our inquiry reveals that there were, in fact, shockingly brazen attempts by Chief Election Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield, Deputy Chief Election Officer (DCEO)Roxanne Myers and Returning Officer (RO) Clairmont Mingo to derail and corrupt the statutorily prescribed procedure for the counting, ascertaining and tabulation of votes of the March 2nd election, as well as the true declaration of the results of that election, and that they did so – to put it in unvarnished language of the ordinary man – for the purpose of stealing the election,” the commissioners said in their report.
UNLAWFUL ACTS
The report found that Lowenfield blatantly made decisions and employed procedures in direct contradiction to the law and the will of the people. The findings revealed too that GECOM staffers ignored specific instructions from the court, used materials that were illegal and or manipulated, and sided with APNU+AFC agents to berate observers whenever objections were raised.
After careful scrutiny, the CoI commissioners concluded that there was a conscious and deliberate – even brazen –effort to violate the provisions of section 84(1) of the Representation of the People Act (RoPA).
In so doing, certain “senior GECOM officials” abandoned all need for neutrality and impartiality, and demonstrated a bias for the APNU+AFC and, in the course of events over those days, showed an “open connection” with that party, and by their efforts sought a desired result for the coalition.
As such, the commissioners said that after consideration and analysis of the evidence, Lowenfield, Mingo and Myers “were principally responsible for clear and deliberate attempts to frustrate, obstruct and subvert the ascertainment of votes in electoral district No. 4.”
