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“If Lowenfield has an ounce of dignity, he will resign” – Regional Political Analyst
If Keith Lowenfield has even an ounce of decency in him, he would resign from the post of Guyana’s Chief Elections Officer (CEO). This view was expressed by Barbadian political analyst, Peter Wickham, when he joined a panel discussion on Kaieteur Radio’s ‘Room 592’ hosted by Dr. Yog Mahadeo and Kaieteur News’ Senior Jounalist, Leonard Gildarie on Friday last.
GECOM’s CEO,
Keith Lowenfield
Barbadian Political, Analyst Peter Wickham
During the discussion, Wickham shared his perspective on Guyana’s post elections state and what should obtain now that the country has a new administration in place.
Alluding to the drama which surrounded the results of the 2020 Regional and General Elections and the role which the CEO played in the matters which unfolded, Wickham said he is convinced that Lowenfield can no longer be viewed as neutral party in the post he occupies.
Making a comparison between Guyana and Barbados, the panelist held that the supervisor of a country’s elections should never be seen in a political light. He explained that in Barbados, the post of supervisor of the elections is sacrosanct and therefore, no one can say that the supervisor of elections is in a political position.
Judging from Lowenfield‘s actions in the past months, the political analyst opined that there is no way that he can be seen as politically untainted.
“So, your Chief Elections Officer in my opinion, if he has not yet resigned, then I would hope that, that would be coming in fairly short order because there is no way that he can convince people that he is not a political operative at this point in time…
Many people who are in rank and file position who are serving a political purpose will have to be looked at. I don’t think they (the new government) are going to move against him but I believe that if he had any modicum of decency, he would say ‘look, let me step aside because I had been behaving in a way that is overtly political,” he said.
Wickham noted that though the elections drama may be seen as an internal issue, political matters like these have a relatively far reach. Within the last few months, the issue surrounding Guyana’s Chief Elections Officer has dominated the media.
Among other things, Lowenfield has been fingered for openly committing fraud and insubordination aimed at delaying and hindering the electoral process.
In the months following the 2020 polls, the CEO presented GECOM with more than one report containing figures, which pointed to a victory for the A Partnership for National Unity +Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) instead of the winning People’s Progressive Party/Civic, (PPP/C).
In one instance, he even produced one report in which he subtracted over 100,000 votes from the PPP/C in favour of the APNU+AFC.
Lowenfield’s reports had been rejected by the Chairperson of GECOM as well as the High Court and Guyana’s apex court, the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) as it contained figures which were erroneous and conjured up by agents of the then ruling party.
He eventually produced the correct report based on the recount of the national elections, which showed a victory for the PPP/C.
Since then, the CEO was slapped with three private criminal charges: fraud, misconduct in office, and breach of public’s trust. Lowenfield is currently on $450,000 bail, and is expected to make his next court appearance on August 14, 2020.
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