Election Observer recalls dispute over Region Four results

Jul 31, 2024 Court Stories, Features / Columnists, News

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Trial into 2020 election fraud case…

Kaieteur News – Former Election Observer, Rosalinda Rasul, on Tuesday took the stand at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court as the second witness in the 2020 Election Fraud case.

Rasul told the court of the dispute between party officials and representatives of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) about the tabulation and announcement of the Region Four results.

The trial for the electoral fraud case involves nine defendants that are facing 19 conspiracy charges. The defendants; former GECOM Chief Election Officer, Keith Lowenfield; former Returning Officer (RO) for District Four Clairmont Mingo; former Deputy Chief Election Officer Roxanne Myers; Former Minister of Health, Volda Lawrence; APNU+AFC’s Chief Scrutineer Carol Smith Joseph; and former GECOM employees Sheffern February, Enrique Liven, Michelle Miller and Denise Babb-Cummings.

On day two of the trial, all defendants were present in court except Michelle Miller who appeared virtually for special reasons.

The charge is that Lowenfield, Mingo and 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 was called at 9:30hrs before Senior Magistrate Leron Daly.  Leading Tuesday’s trail was Prosecutor Latchmie Rahamat. Rasul, who was the former credited observer of Amcham Guyana, told the court that on March 2, 2020 she was assigned to several polling stations to observe the casting of votes in Districts Three and Four.

She testified that around 22:35hrs she proceeded to the Ashmins building briefly to observe the tabulation process into Region Four. Rasul further stated that around 01:35hrs on March 2 she heard RO Mingo announce that the tabulation process would be halted and resume at 02:00hrs.

“He said that there was one SOP (Statement of Polls) that was tabulated when he halted the process to state that the parties will be given an opportunity to put their recipes in order and resume the tabulation process at 2 am,” Rasul said.

She said that, while present at the building, she noticed local and international observers, as well as agents from all the respective political parties, including A Partnership for National Unity + the Alliance for Change (APNU+AFC) and the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C).

The election observer claimed that the tabulation process was halted at 04:15 hrs. and resumed at 9:30h on March 3, though she was not present at the Ashmins building that day.

On March 4, Rasul recalled that while she was waiting in the regional office room, she saw Deputy Chief Election Officer Roxanne Myers enter the room announcing that Mingo was unwell and had to be taken away by an ambulance.

Myers subsequently returned to the room and according to Rasul announced that she (Myers) will resume the tabulation process of the East Bank Demerara District. Rasul said she observed that three persons from the PPP/C objected to Myers’ statement. Those persons were Sonia Parag, Kwame McCoy, and Sasenarine Singh.

She told the court, “Political parties started to speak very loudly against that decision stated that they had not yet completed the tabulation process for Georgetown.”

There was a back and forth between the PPP/C and Myers in relation to how many SOPs were tabulated for Georgetown.

Rasul continued, “The PPP/C were saying 100 SOPs are still to be tabulated and Myers had said three. Myself and partner opted to present a list to Myers from our laptop as to how many SOPs were remaining.” She said that the outstanding tabulation contained 59 SOPs.

Around 14:00 hrs. it was announced that the tabulation will resume with the East Bank Demerara District and two GECOM staff, Alexandra Bowen and Michelle Miller would continue the tabulation process.

Rasul observed that Bowen and Miller were calling the number of votes from a document that was not the SOP. At that point, defence attorney Darren Wade objected to Rasul’s statement questioning whether she knew what an SOP looked like.

As a result, Rasul rephrased and said that the document looked like a legal sized paper. She told the court that when Miller started calling numbers there were noises coming from the PPP/C party saying that the figures were “inaccurate” and that they were showing a deviation from what they had on their SOPs.

Rasul said that the objecting PPP/C members asked the Miller to stop calling the numbers and get GECOM Chief Elections Officer Lowenfield into the room to clear the matter. However, Miller continued calling the numbers.

Miller subsequently paused the counting when a member from PPP/C group exited the room to summon Lowenfield.

“There was lot of arguments from various persons from the room with Miller regarding the numbers,” Rasul recalled noting that  Lowenfield entered the room and party agents explained to him what was happening and their disagreement with the procedure since it deviated from the norm.

The witness told the court that the PPP/C members stated that the numbers being called by Miller were not reflected on their SOPs and that they wanted the procedure to return to normalcy.

“Lowenfield at that point had some things to say and he referred to the document as a broad sheet and he said that it was an administrative tool [and] that he had no problem with the figures used in the tabulation process,” Rasul told the court.

She recalled that those present in the room objected to the process and Lowenfield in response said if there were issues with the broad sheet and their SOPs then he would provide GECOM’s SOPs to clarify the queries.

Subsequently, Lowenfield reportedly used the SOPs to continue counting the votes. Rasul said that Parag called her numbers from the SOPs in her possession while Lowenfield called his. The observer concluded that the numbers presented by both Lowenfield and Parag correlated.

Meanwhile, during Tuesday’s testimony by Rasul, lawyers representing the defence Eusi Anderson and Ronald Daniels, frequently interjected by noting that the observer drew her own conclusions based on what she observed and that ought to be inadmissible.

Magistrate Daly acknowledged and made it clear that Rasul’s personal opinions would be struck from the record. The matter was adjourned to 09:30h today when Rasul will return to the witness box to resume her testimony.

Parag, who is currently Minister of Local Government and Regional Development, continued her testimony on Tuesday is expected to be cross examined soon.

Additionally, the Prosecution led by attorney Darshan Ramdhani, KC is expected to call Rawl Nedd and Edgar Thomas to the witness stand this week.

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• APNU+AFC, court, Election Fraud Case, GECOM, Magistrate Leron Daly, PPP/C

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