RONDHA-ANN Lam, Presidential Candidate and Leader of The Citizenship Initiative (TCI) in the 2020 General and Regional Elections, told a Georgetown courtroom on Monday that she vociferously objected to the tabulation process.

She characterised the March 2020 tabulation and verification of votes in Region Four, Guyana’s most populous district, as being plagued by fraudulent practices.
Lam testified before Acting Chief Magistrate Faith McGusty in the ongoing election fraud trial.

She recalled confronting then Region Four Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo and other Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) officials.
Lam said that she acted because she believed the lawful procedures were being ignored during the tabulation and verification process at the Ashmin’s Building at High and Hadfield streets, Georgetown, which at the time served as GECOM’s Command Centre and the Office of Returning Officer Mingo.

“I objected to when he [Mingo] was not [following] the prescribed SoPs procedure the then Chief Justice [Roxane George, SC] outlined. And I vociferously objected to him reading from a spreadsheet,” Lam said, referring to Statements of Poll (SoPs), the official documents required for tabulating and verifying votes.
She told the court that on March 4, 2020, after Mingo fell ill and was taken to hospital, the process was left in the hands of other GECOM staff. That evening, she said she observed discrepancies in the figures, which led to frequent disputes among party members over incorrect SoPs numbers.

According to Lam, while over 300 SoPs had been independently verified by her and her team, she saw deliberate manipulation in the figures being announced.
She testified that, based on the results they had independently verified, there was a deliberate pattern of adjusting votes, with increases benefiting the then incumbent A Partnership for National Unity + Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) and decreases disadvantaging the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C)—the then opposition party.
“I observed based on what we had independently verified… there was a methodical raising and lowering of votes. The raising of those votes were in favour of the incumbent APNU+AFC and the lowering was to the disadvantage of the PPP/C opposition party,” she testified.

Lam described heated confrontations inside the tabulation room, stating that she, other party agents, and election observers raised objections. She said the situation escalated, with numerous people arguing heatedly and tensions rising sharply.

Lam also recalled that Enrique Livan, who was a GECOM Information Technology officer at the time, attempted to leave with GECOM’s flash drive, prompting objections.
She stated that the flash drive contained data on votes cast across multiple districts within Region Four. Later, she recalled that Liberty and Justice Party (LJP) Leader Lenox Shuman told her, “We found Mr Livan in a back room and he had the flash drive on the laptop.”
Lam said party agents were shouting that the elections were being rigged and that the flash drive was compromised. She recounted that persons were shouting phrases such as “They are attempting to rig the elections” and “The flash drive is compromised.”

The witness told the court that when Livan called out figures, the same “methodical” lowering of numbers for the PPP/C and raising of numbers for the APNU+AFC” continued.
When asked by Prosecutor Madana Rampersaud how she responded to this, Lam said: “I objected because I had independently verified SoPs. Those numbers were incorrect.”
She testified that the irregularities followed a clear pattern, noting: “It was a pattern. What I saw were [increases] in increments of 10. I saw APNU+AFC votes being raised.”
She recalled that chaos escalated on March 5, 2020, when Mingo reappeared and tried to declare results without verifying all of the ballot boxes.
Lam said that around 1 p.m., Mingo entered the room and spoke about his illness.

“And when I thought that he was going to restart the verification process, he started to make a declaration of results when all of the ballot boxes had not been verified. I was in shock because we had results declared when he had not verified all the ballot boxes,” Lam said.
She said that later that day, GECOM posted a document on Facebook declaring the Region Four results, which was signed by Mingo and then Health Minister Volda Lawrence of the APNU+AFC.

Lam recalled that arguments erupted between government and opposition officials.
She added that sometime later, riot police arrived, and then Deputy Chief Elections Officer Roxanne Myers instructed everyone to leave the building.
She said she complied, and during that time, Dr. Josh Khanai of The New Movement (TNM) informed her that GECOM Chairman, retired Justice Claudette Singh, was being held against her will.

Lam told the court that a second attempt was made to declare the results on March 13, 2020. After presenting her evidence-in-chief, she was cross-examined by defence attorney Nigel Hughes. The trial is scheduled to resume today at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Courts.

Those charged include Carol Smith-Joseph of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR), former Chief Elections Officer Keith Lowenfield, Lawrence, Myers, and Mingo. Also charged are former GECOM employees Sheffern February, Livan, Denise Babb-Cummings, and Michelle Miller.
Collectively, they face 19 conspiracy charges and are represented by a robust defence team.
Due to the charges arising from the same set of circumstances, the matters have been consolidated. Each defendant has pleaded not guilty to the charges and secured their release by posting significant cash bail.

The prosecution, led by King’s Counsel Darshan Ramdhanie, argued that each defendant played a “critical role” in the deliberate effort to inflate votes for the APNU+AFC and reduce votes for the PPP/C.
In the weeks that followed the contentious March 2, 2020, vote, Guyana’s judiciary was inundated with multiple applications and appeals filed by various political actors over the electoral process.

The saga lasted five months before a national recount, led by GECOM and a delegation from the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), confirmed the PPP/C’s victory and ultimately led to the swearing-in of President Dr. Irfaan Ali on August 2, 2020.

The recount confirmed that the PPP/C won the elections with 233,336 votes against the APNU+AFC coalition’s 217,920.
The initial elections results, announced by former CEO Lowenfield, claimed an APNU+AFC victory.

The APNU+AFC coalition received 171,825 votes, while the PPP/C received 166,343 votes, according to Lowenfield’s election report.
Following the PPP/C’s return to office in August 2020, criminal charges were filed against the defendants.

GECOM made the decision to terminate the contracts of Lowenfield, Myers, and Mingo in August 2021, after the allegations of fraud came to light