Trial into 2020 election fraud case opens

Jul 30, 2024 Court Stories, Features / Columnists, News

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Kaieteur News – After four years of delays, the trial for the 2020 Elections fraud case finally got underway on Monday when Minister of Local Government and Regional Development, Sonia Parag stood as first witness to testify against former top officials of Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) and senior members of the former APNU+AFC Coalition government.

In the case, nine defendants are facing 19 conspiracy charges. The defendants; former GECOM Chief Elections Officer, Keith Lowenfield; former Returning Officer for District Four Clairmont Mingo; former Deputy Chief Election Officer Roxanne Myers; Former Minister, Volda Lawrence; APNU+AFC’s Chief Scrutineer Carol Smith Joseph; and former GECOM employees Sheffern February, Enrique Liven, Michelle Miller and Denise Babb-Cummings. They were all present in court for the trial except Michelle Miller who appeared virtually for special reasons.

The charge is that Lowenfield, Mingo and Roxanne Myers between the March 2 and August 2, 2020 in Ashmins’ building, Georgetown, conspired with each other and together with Lawrence, Joseph, February, Livan, Cummings, Miller and others to defraud the electors of Guyana by presenting false votes cast at the March 2, 2020 general and regional elections.

The trial is being conducted before Senior Magistrate Leron Daly at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court.  Leading evidence from the witness box, Minister Parag who was a candidate for the PPP/C at the elections told the Court that she was assigned to compare the figures from the Statements of Poll (SOPs) when the vote tabulation process was interrupted.

She testified that vote counting began on March 3, 2020, around 08:00hrs and she was present at Ashmins’ building on High Street to observe the tabulation on behalf of the People’s Progressive Party /Civic (PPP/C).

The minister said that when she arrived at the location, she entered a room on the building’s ground floor filled with party representatives and local and international observers. According to her, the counting involved comparing the SOPs numbers with the figures announced by Returning Officer, Clairmonte Mingo.

The process continued through the day and into the night. At around 21:00hrs, she said Mingo announced he was tired and that the process would resume the next morning. Parag said that as a result, she left the building.

The next morning, when the process had not resumed, the Minister recalled that she learnt that Mingo had fallen ill and had to be taken away by an ambulance. She said that there was some commotion, but despite this, she stayed in the room to oversee the SOPs.

The minister claimed that she observed two GECOM employees, along with then Minister of Health Volda Lawrence and another woman, in the tabulation room. During this time, she said that a GECOM employee, whom she identified as Michelle Miller, was holding a document and began calling out numbers from a box numbered 4001 from East Bank of Demerara.

She continued that when Miller started to count the votes, she compared the votes on her SOPs at which point she realised that the figures were different and as such, she announced her observation. Parag said she objected to the numbers that were being read out by Miller from what appeared to be a spreadsheet instead of SOP.

“I proceeded to call out loudly the numbers I had in my possession but [Miller] just paused for a bit then continued reading from the spreadsheet,” Parag said.

She noted she objected to Miller’s action because she was not supposed to be reading from a spreadsheet but an SOP. “I objected by standing up and saying that those are not the numbers I had…” Parag stated.

Throughout her testimony, the defence team led by lawyers Eusi Anderson, Darren Wade and Ronald Daniels constantly interjected and sought to clarify issues such as the witness ‘evidence as it relates to identification of defendants. Magistrate Daly nevertheless clarified that identification of the defendants was not critical to the case. As a result of the constant interjection by the lawyers, the matter was adjourned to 9:30 am today when Parag will return to the witness box to continue her evidence.

Meanwhile, the State’s Prosecution team led by attorney Darshan Ramdhani KC is expected to call witnesses; Rosalinda Rasul, Rawl Nedd and Edgar Thomas to the witness stand.

During the trial, the Prosecution team intends to lead a number of witnesses throughout the six weeks to show that the votes for Region Four were irregular.

Ramdhani said that evidence will say that the counting process must be using statements of polls (SOP) from GECOM in which Mingo and other members from GECOM were responsible for the process.

He also stated that the evidence will show that during the process of the tabulation of votes, the SOPs process were changed and the officials no longer relied on the procedure during the exercise.

In relation to that, Defence Attorney Anderson stressed his concerns regarding the SOP not being present at court. He therefore made three applications; the first was for the provisions of Statement of Polls (SOPs) to the court, which he said appears to be the most important detail of the case.

The second application was a request for protection of all of the defendants to prevent them from being intimidated during the trial. Anderson in his third application asked the court to ensure a visit to the Ashmins’ building where all the events unravelled. Anderson noted that it is important to the trial so that the Court can have an understanding of evidence presented by the witnesses during the trial.

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• court, Elections, Magistrate Leron Daly, officials, trial

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