Two separate private criminal charges have been filed against Chief Election Officer Keith Lowenfield by members of the PPP/C and The New Movement (TNM) over his controversial decision to seek to invalidate over 115,000 votes from the March 2 polls.
TNM’s Daniel Josh Kanhai has accused Lowenfield of conspiracy to commit fraud to alter the results of the elections, while the PPP/C’s Desmond Morian alleges that he willfully misconducted himself by ascertaining false results, thereby breaching the public’s trust.
Particulars of the offence as sworn to by Kanhai are that Lowenfield, between March 5th and June 23rd, 2020, conspired with person (s) unknown to commit the common law offence of fraud, to wit, by representing to the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) that tables attached to his June 23rd elections report accurately reflected the true results of the elections in order to materially alter the results, with intent to defraud as he knew the tabulation to be false.
The offence is described as conspiracy to commit a felony as defined under Section 34 of the Criminal Law (Offences) Act, Chapter 8:01, and carried a punishment of seven years in jail if proven.
The charge attested to by Morian states that Lowenfield, while performing his duty as CEO, without lawful excuse or justification, willfully misconducted himself by ascertaining results of the elections “knowing the said results to be false, the said willful misconduct amounting to a breach of the public’s trust in the office of the CEO.
Kanhai is represented by attorney Mark Conway, while Morian is represented by attorney Glenn Hanoman.
His client, Kanhai, told Stabroek News that he did not want the case against the CEO to look like a political attack. Instead, he said he is only seeking to ensure Lowenfield is held accountable. He said that the CEO’s actions have seriously affected many persons who voted and have now learned that their efforts would be discarded. “At this point the case should not be viewed as one with a political angle or a political attack against Mr. Lowenfield. It is clearly being done from a civil point of view because I feel Mr. Lowenfield has disfranchised 115,000 Guyanese by his actions. He claims that he has acted constitutionally but we believe he acted fraudulently when he disfranchised the Guyanese people. We are hurt by this and he should be charged …,” he explained.
Kanhai’s attorney was confident of the prospects of proving the charge. “To put it bluntly I would not have filed if I did not think we had a good chance of winning. He has represented a total different calculation that is not what is in the certified recount and he should held liable because this is electoral fraud,” Conway told Stabroek News when contacted.
“There is no basis on his own to come about that calculation. This was a recount witnessed by many prominent persons attached to many parties, the CARICOM team… agreed with GECOM’s staff. And yet he unilaterally came about a whole different calculation,” he added.
He said that he did not foresee any difficulty in proving the elements of the charge when the time comes.
He reasoned that because of the anguish forced upon the people of Guyana during the over 100 days wait for results from the elections, persons responsible should face the consequences for their callous actions.
“Given the serious complications of the continuity of this situation, it is time some of the authors of this be made accountable, as it will affect us as a country. The repercussions can be very severe to us as a country, given the sanctions that may incur from this,” he said.
The GECOM CEO last week submitted a report to GECOM which discards over 115,000 votes that were cast at the March 2nd polls and purports to award victory to the incumbent APNU+AFC.
The results of the national recount, which have been certified by GECOM’s Secretariat, show 460,295 votes cast on March 2, with the PPP/C’s list of candidates attaining 233,336 votes compared to the 217,920 garnered by the incumbent APNU+AFC coalition. Under that count, the PPP/C has won the elections by 15,416 votes.
Lowenfield, however, subsequently presented two sets of his own numbers to GECOM.
The first set, submitted as part of summary of the observation reports generated during the recount, showed a total of 185,260 votes that he had determined were unaffected by alleged irregularities. Of the number of votes deemed valid in that alternative count by Lowenfield in that report, the majority was purportedly cast in favour of the incumbent coalition, which he said secured 125,010 votes to the PPP/C’s 56,628.
His June 23rd report shows a total of 344,508 “valid and credible” votes. It, too, shows an APNU+AFC victory, with 171,825 votes compared to 166,343 for the PPP/C and 3,348 for a joinder list of new parties.
In the submission of the report of what he deemed “valid and credible votes,” he flouted the clear directive of Chairman of the Commission Justice (ret’d) Claudette Singh to compose his report “using the results of the recount” of votes.
On Friday, he defended his decision saying that he has acted lawfully.
While many observers and other stakeholders have condemned the report submitted by Lowenfield, the coalition APNU has argued that the CEO acted lawfully when he discarded more than 115,000 votes.
There have been calls for Lowenfield to be dismissed by GECOM while the Private Sector Commission (PSC) has urged his suspension.
