One by one the masks are coming off. First, it was the District Four Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo who tried to fix the election in favour of APNU+AFC by casting aside Statements of Poll and inflating and deflating figures according to his whims. Astonishingly, he managed to make two fraudulent declarations for District Four before CARICOM’s intervention led to a torturous recount of ballots from the March 2nd elections. Aside from the electoral fraud investigations that will have to be pursued against Mr Mingo, the allegation that his office misdirected Presiding Officers from a cluster of East Coast villages on statutory documents to be placed in ballot boxes must be rigorously pursued.
Now for Chief Election Officer (CEO) Mr Lowenfield. Having failed to secure a rigged election result to swear in Mr David Granger again, APNU+AFC and their cohorts in GECOM embarked on a different plan: demolish the credibility of the election and hope for its nullification or alternatively a political deal for power sharing. The latter is outside Mr Lowenfield’s bailiwick but he has some purchase on the former. He could possibly concoct the most egregious claims and then advise the GECOM Chair that the elections he was fully in charge of were not credible. The crucible for these claims comprised the “observation” reports which APNU+AFC agents at the recount populated with the most reckless and specious allegations about multiple voting and inconsistencies in documentation within the ballot boxes.
Mr Lowenfield’s adoption of the claims in these reports without any testing of them is a most shameful attack on the integrity of thousands of polling day workers who were trained by GECOM and toiled at 2,339 polling stations in all parts of the country to ensure the required procedures were complied with. His attempt to undermine the credibility of the election cements the conspiracy which drew in the Chief Immigration Officer who is also the Commissioner of Police and other government officials.
One cannot possibly take Mr Lowenfield seriously when in all his summaries for the 10 districts he is prepared to shepherd unfounded claims by APNU+AFC and blithely pass judgement on them. For example, in his summary for Region Six Mr Lowenfield says in part “Recorded in the Observation Reports were allegations made by a contesting party that there were one thousand, one hundred and twenty-eight (1128) instances of voter impersonation. The party alleged that based on their investigations in this region; there were seven (7) instances where deceased persons appeared to have voted and one thousand one hundred and twenty-one (1,121) instances where electors who are alleged to be out of the jurisdiction were recorded as having voted.
“In respect of the allegations of voter impersonation, responses from the Chief Immigration Officer and review of the General Registrar’s Office Decreased Reports confirmed that these were of substance”.
The flimsiness of these allegations is self-evident. Moreover they have not been tested. Neither the Chief Immigration Officer nor the General Registrar’s Office has been interrogated. How therefore can these allegations detract from the lawful conduct of polling at all of these stations on March 2nd and as recorded on Statements of Poll which both GECOM and APNU+AFC have tellingly hidden from public view? How can it create this fiction when at none of these stations was there even a murmur of impropriety on polling day?
That Mr Lowenfield’s report makes him out to be totally incompetent and culpable for the alleged failures on polling day is of little importance. What is significant is the assault on the reputations of thousands of hard-working Guyanese who laboured throughout the day on March 2nd and on the well-tested, well-functioning electoral system which has been a bulwark against electoral fraud since 1992. No matter how this present crisis evolves it is hard to see how elections can be credibly staged in the future. Mr Lowenfield’s accepting of these observation reports means that the most insubstantial allegations can traduce and hobble an entire election.
The CEO’s report to GECOM should have been accompanied by his immediate resignation from the post and that of his Deputy Roxanne Myers. If that was not done it should be done immediately. Neither he nor she should have anything further to do with the 2020 general elections and GECOM should make interim appointments for the continuation of the process.
It is now left to GECOM Chair Justice Claudette Singh to take the process to finality. She is fully aware that from her own direct observations of polling day and the events thereafter that Mr Lowenfield’s roguish report has no basis. Five credible international observer groups have upheld the voting and counting on March 2nd as credible and one of them, the Organisation of American States, which monitored the 33-day recount of ballots has said that the process was clean and provides the basis for the declaration of a result.
As Chair of GECOM, Ms Singh is aware that she is ultimately accountable for the non-declaration of results more than three months after ballots were cast. From her presiding in the Esther Perreira petition case she would be aware of the standard of proof required to overturn the results of voting. She would know that what Mr Lowenfield has submitted has no legal basis. Her only option is to firmly take the reins and to declare a result.
There is nothing like a no-result. Nullification is not within her ambit. She must rise to the occasion to preserve the democratic credentials of the country otherwise it will descend into pariah status with no Parliament, no budget and the rule of law undermined. This must not happen and she must discharge her responsibility to the nation and its people. She must immediately call a meeting of GECOM and have the final recount result certified.
