Lowenfield discards 25% of valid votes to give Coalition win

Jun 24, 2020 News

By Shikema Dey

Just one day after the Court of Appeal ruled that “valid votes” must be used to determine the winner of the March 2, 2020 Elections, Chief Elections Officer (CEO), Keith Lowenfield,

GECOM CEO, Keith Lowenfield

submitted his final report to the GECOM Chairman, Ret’d Justice Claudette Singh with what he purports to be “valid votes”. In so doing he discarded more than 115,000 votes to hand the A Partnership For National Unity +Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) a victory and a one-seat majority in Parliament.Lowenfield, in the cover letter of the report, stated that he has taken note of the guidance of the Court of Appeal in Eslyn David v Chief Elections et al in the preparation of his Report under Section 96 of the Representation of the People Act and providing advice as required by Article 177 (2) (b) of the Constitution.

GECOM Chairman, Ret’d Justice Claudette Singh

His submission of this report, however, breaches the three-day stay of the judgment handed down by the Appeal Court following the ruling in the David case. Additionally, a stay on GECOM’s moving to declaration is expected to be handed down by the CCJ following an application made by Opposition Leader Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo and PPP Presidential Candidate Dr. Irfaan Ali.The Appeal Court in a 2-1 majority decision ruled that that in determining the results of the March 2, 2020 Elections, Lowenfield must do so based on which party received the most “valid” votes.

Lowenfield’s new numbers
The CEO was instructed by the GECOM Chair to compile his final report under Section 96 of the Representation of the People Act as stated in the gazetted recount order – using the figures from the National Recount.Those figures show that the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) won with a total of 233,336 votes, handing them a victory for the March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections.
The APNU+AFC managed to attain 217,920 and the Tri-party Joinder – A New And United Guyana (ANUG), The Liberty and Justice Party (LJP) and The New Movement (TMN) – 5,214 votes.
The figures in his new report differ entirely from the recount numbers submitted in his preliminary report to the Chair, with no explanation offered by the CEO in his report, to account for the vast difference.

Images of the report submitted by Lowenfield showing new figures

With Lowenfield’s newly revised numbers, the APNU+AFC Coalition’s votes have now been reduced to 171,825, a difference of 46,095; the PPP/C’s reduced to 166,343, a difference of 66,993, and the Tri-part Joinder’s reduced to 3,348, a difference of 1,866.
In this scenario, the joinder retains its singular seat.In totality, Lowenfield’s new figures dumped 115,844 of the valid votes tabulated during the National Recount, reducing the total valid votes cast in the General Election from 460,352 to 344,508 – disenfranchising thousands of voters who exercised their democratic right on March 2.
The recount figures would have given the PPP/C 33 parliamentary seats to form a government, with 31 going to the APNU+AFC Coalition and the remainder handed to the Tri-party Joinder, to complete the 65- seat National Assembly.
With Lowenfield’s new figures, the APNU+AFC will be positioned for 33 seats in Parliament while the PPP/C will be positioned for 31 seats and the remainder to the Joinder.
Kaieteur News attempted to contact GECOM’s Publication Relations Officer, Yolanda Ward, to provide clarity on the report but all efforts proved futile.