Embattled Chief Election Officer, Keith Lowenfield is to present his declaration of results today to the Elections Commission for final certification of a winner of the March 2nd general elections though there are doubts about whether he will comply with the specific instructions from the Chair, Claudette Singh.
Meanwhile Alliance For Change (AFC) leader, Khemraj Ramjattan, believes that certain legal technicalities can tip the electoral scale in the coalition’s favour.
“At this stage, in my opinion, it is not as clear cut as the PPP wants it to be,” Ramjattan told Stabroek News yesterday when contacted.
“The situation (today) , as I foresee it, will be the CEO presenting his report. I think the CEO’s report is going to take into consideration the three pieces of legislation; namely the (recount) order 60, valid votes as per the Represen-tation of the People Act and the fact that he has to advise the Chairman of the Commission under the constitution. Quite frankly that is a hell of a job. Since he has maintained positions of the final count not being credible, it difficult to see how he could very change from that,” he added.
Ramjattan’s posture comes even as reliable sources disclosed that government ministers were yesterday locked in meetings discussing legal arguments the CEO may use, and the Ministry of the Presidency saying that the President was busy at meetings all day.
“The Chairman has said to the CEO she wants the aggregate of the recount for a declaration, but that is subject to his interpretation of valid votes along with what the constitution which states that it is on the advice of the CEO that the Chairman should make the declaration. His advice is based on what he considers valid votes and that is subject to his interpretation,” one source said.
However, in her directive, the GECOM Chair was clear that Lowenfield prepare a declaration of the results using the data generated from the National Recount.
The recount results, which were certified by GECOM’s Secretariat, show that the PPP/C’s list of candidates has secured 233,336 votes compared to the 217,920 garnered by the incumbent APNU+AFC coalition.
This means the PPP/C has won the March 2 General Elections by 15,416 votes. Based on the figures, the PPP/C will have 33 seats in the new Parliament, the incumbent APNU+AFC, 31, and three parties: LJP, ANUG and TNM will share one seat in a list joinder.
Under Section 96 of the Representation of the People Act, Chapter 1:03 and in keeping with Order No. 60 of 2020 which governed the recount, Lowenfield is to use the matrices for the recount of the 10 Electoral Districts to compile a report showing the number of votes cast for each list of candidates; the number of rejected ballot papers and the number of seats allocated to each list of candidates.
But Lowenfield has said that his agency did not carry out credible elections and argued that identified anomalies and instances of voter impersonation do not appear to satisfy the criteria of impartiality, fairness, and compliance with provisions of the Constitution and the Representation of the People Act.
“Consequently, on the basis of the votes counted and the information furnished from the recount, it cannot be ascertained that the results… meet the standard of fair and credible elections,” he concluded
While voting and counting at the March 2nd elections were deemed to be fair and efficient, the tabulation process at the District Four office was marred by fraud when Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo was found to be using fictitious figures to give victory to APNU+AFC. This discovery triggered a series of legal cases culminating in the recount of all of the votes cast. This was done beginning May 6 at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre and lasted for 33 days. The Caricom observer team which had been monitoring the process issued their report on Monday and found that the recount and by extension the March 2nd voting, provided a basis for the declaration of a final result.
Granger’s government has clung defiantly to power after losing the December 21, 2018 motion of no- confidence in parliament. It has been argued that senior persons within APNU+AFC were also aware of the elections result days after the March 2nd 2020 polls but refused to accept defeat. APNU+AFC initially called for Granger to be sworn in but after the recount began it changed its tune and began attacking the integrity of the election but presented no proof. None of the observer groups that monitored the elections found any evidence to substantiate the APNU+AFC claims. Moreover, no APNU+AFC polling agent complained about irregularities on March 2nd.
Parliament has not met for a more than a year, there is no budget in place for 2020, and the country is in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.
When this newspaper checked government ministries yesterday, there was no activity and persons employed at some of them said that there has been no recent indication of ministers clearing their offices.
It seems that today, the government will again try to cling to power using the CEO’s interpretation of the constitution.
Ramjattan said that he suspects “when Lowenfield sends his report in, you might have the commissioners wanting to study it so it could go the next day or couple days, but they did admit they want to make a decision in three days.”
He said that the voting decision will be left ultimately to the seven-member Commission, of which the Chairperson is an impartial vote and he believes that with her experience in law, she will hear all legal arguments before a decision is made.
The AFC leader said that he wanted to make clear that he was speaking for himself and not the AFC as the coalition’s party agent, Joseph Harmon, will make all statements for the party which the APNU+AFC say they will abide by. “We want one person to make all the statements of the party and we stick with that and we will await the full outcome of the Commission’s decision,” he said.
But for him, he said that he was tired of the wait and wants the process over with so that the country could get on to dealing with matters of development.
“It is over 107 days now since the election and I would really want a declaration that would be satisfactory to all parties so that there would not be vexation of the spirit…” he said
“I believe that companies like Cambridge Analytica and Mercury played a big part in the PPP/C’s campaign and influenced a lot of things…we have to learn from these things and evolve into a greater democracy,” he added.
APNU+AFC also hired a foreign firm to help with elections matters.
The March 2nd elections were badly marred by an attempt by District Four Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo to rig the elections in favour of APNU+AFC. He was found out and this led to an agreement for a recount of votes from all 10 districts.
