Following a decision of the Appeal Court yesterday both the incumbent APNU+AFC Coalition and the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) have called on the Elections Commission to make a declaration of the results of the March 2 polls. The two parties however disagreed on what those results are.
By a majority of 2 to 1 the Court ruled that the words “more votes are cast” as per Article 177 (2) (b) of the Constitution of Guyana should be interpreted to mean “more valid votes are cast” in keeping with the definition of valid votes as outlined in Order 60 of 2020 (Recount Order).
The interpreted Article now provides that “a Presidential candidate shall be deemed to have been elected as President and shall be so declared by the Chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission— if more valid votes are cast in favour of the list in which he is designated as Presidential candidate than in favour of any other list.”
It is now for the Commission led by Justice (ret’d) Claudette Singh to pronounce on what are “valid votes”. The Order suggests that a valid ballot is one reconciled against a series of statutory documents including ballots cast, destroy-ed, spoiled, stamped, and as deemed necessary, their counterfoils/stubs.
The recently concluded national recount of votes has generated tabulations of valid votes for each district.
Also listed is the number of voters listed and crossed out as having voted; the number of votes cast without ID cards; the number of proxies issued and the number utilized and occurrences recorded in the Poll Book.
The PPP/C however is dismissive of this definition maintaining that a valid vote is that which was certified as valid during that National Recount.
“We are contending that total valid votes have already been determined by the recount itself by the certifying officer of GECOM, by [Chief Election Officer] Keith Lowenfield in a report and by the Commission when they directed him to use the valid votes to prepare the report under Section 96,” PPP/C General Secretary Bharrat Jagdeo declared in a virtual statement.
He repeatedly referred to the results of the recently concluded National Recount which showed his party winning the elections as a valid count.
These 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.
The Coalition however has claimed that that tens of thousands of votes cannot be deemed as credible or valid having been affected by instances of fraud, discrepancies and anomalies. These allegations made by the party however remain unsubstantiated.
“They were numerous instances of voter impersonation (dead persons and migrated persons registered as having voted), missing ballots, unstamped ballots, missing poll books, missing oaths of identity and unsigned oaths of identity, more ballots that electors found in ballot boxes among other grave issues,” they contend.
Vindication
According to the APNU+AFC yesterday’s ruling is vindication.
“It is a confirmation of the party’s position that a final and credible count as contemplated by Order No. 60 of 2020 does not mean a mere numerical tabulation of votes but an assessment of the credibility of votes as contemplated by Order No. 60 of 2020,” they stressed while arguing that illegitimate votes, cannot be included in the consideration of ‘valid votes’ to determine a credible outcome.
The party has found support for its position from the Chief Election Officer who in a controversial report to the Commis-sion suggested that only 185,260 votes cast can be considered valid. The verified figure from the National Recount is 460,295 votes.
Of the number of votes deemed valid by Lowenfield the majority was cast in favour of the incumbent as the alternative count grants the coalition 125,010 votes and the PPP/C 56,628.
The evidence used to deem nearly 60% of votes invalid includes breaches of polling procedures outlined in the Representation of the People Act and the official manual for Presiding Officers and other Polling Day Officials (Revised 2019) as well as alleged voter impersonation.
None of these claims have however been tested in a Court of law and GECOM previously declared that it does not have the ability to conduct the necessary investigation.
In a statement last Thursday, Singh maintained that GECOM does not have the powers of a Court of Law to examine and re-examine witnesses or to procure official documents to determine the truth of the allegations contained therein.
“Article 163 (1) (b) of the Constitution confers on the High Court the exclusive jurisdiction to determine the validity of an election,” she explained adding that though it resorted to Article 162 (1) (b) of the Constitution to give itself the authority to conduct the national recount, GECOM cannot clothe itself with jurisdiction to establish itself as a Court of Law to determine credibility of an election.
Justice Brassington Reynold’s yesterday ruled that the recount order does clothe the Commission with this jurisdiction. He was the only judge to make that ruling.
Jagdeo meanwhile drew attention to the Certificates of recount issued for each electoral district which clearly state that it records the “valid votes cast for each party’s list of candidate.” He reminded that these certificates were signed by all contesting parties except the Coalition.
“When the Court of Appeal said more votes mean more valid votes we agreed with that because it is part of statutory documents,” he stressed.
