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“Lowenfield has no authority to give opinion on credibility of elections” – Jagdeo
The Opposition People’s Progressive Party (PPP) yesterday said that Chief Elections Officer (CEO) of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Keith Lowenfield had “no authority” to note his personal opinions in the report on the National Recount.
GECOM’s CEO Keith Lowenfield
Yesterday, around noon, Lowenfield submitted Matrices for the recount of the 10 Electoral Districts and a Summary of the Observation Reports for each district to the GECOM Chair, Ret’d Justice Claudette Singh, along with required attachments, pursuant to the gazetted order made by GECOM, under which the national recount of ballots, were done.
In its statement, the PPP highlighted the relevant portions of the May 29 addendum to the initial gazetted order which said “The matrices for the recount of the ten (10) Electoral Districts shall then be tabulated by the Chief Election Officer and be submitted in a report, together with a summary of the observation reports for each District, to the Commission on or before 13th day of June 2020.”
“It is clear from the above that Lowenfield has no power or authority or any mandate to offer a view, opinion or judgement of any type, either in the Observation Report or the Matrices to be tabulated,” the PPP said, adding that Lowenfield’s singular duty “was to summarize the various Observation Reports and to aggregate the totals in the Matrices.”
Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo
In his summary of each District, Lowenfield stated that “The summation of anomalies and instances of voter impersonation identified in District Nine clearly does not appear to satisfy the criteria of impartiality, fairness, and compliance with provisions of the Constitution and the ROPA Cap 1:03. Consequently, on the basis of the votes counted and the information furnished from the recount, it cannot be ascertained that the results for District Ten, Upper Demerara/Berbice, meet the standard of fair and credible elections.”
This, according to the Opposition was “clear and blatant violation of the Gazetted order.”
“In a clear and blatant violation of the Order, Lowenfield arrogated unto himself the role of an investigator, judge and executioner and made conclusive findings, in respect of the wild, reckless and baseless allegations made by APNU+AFC and rendered a judgment on them, concluding that they were established, without doing any investigations, hearing no one affected and applying principles only known to himself.”
The party accused Lowenfield of acting “ultra vires”, “, in excess of and without authority, in violation of natural justice, in abrogation of the separation of powers doctrine, unlawfully, unconstitutionally and the pronouncements that he has made are certainly null, void and of no effect.”
The PPP said that “his pronouncements and tabulations bear a striking resemblance to the contentions and calculations of the APNU+AFC have not gone unnoticed. He would make an excellent witness for the APNU+AFC at the trial of an Election Petition.”
Additionally, the party said that Lowenfield has committed “Misfeasance” as the CEO of an election process under his purview.
“In so doing, he has also thrown under the bus thousands of Guyanese, who have worked diligently in the electoral machinery, all because he wants to satisfy the agenda of his political masters at Congress Place,” the PPP noted.
The CEO, the Opposition said, has also rendered the entire Commission complicit in and culpable of spending approximately $8B of taxpayers’ dollars in holding elections that were not credible.
“This is the same Lowenfield, who had prepared a Report on Mingo’s fraudulent declarations and was ready to submit it to the Commission.”
The PPP called on the seven-member Commission of GECOM to “ignore” every aspect of the CEO’s report, “other than the General Elections Recount Totals and the Regional Elections Recount Totals.”
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