Georgetown Magistrate Faith McGusty yesterday ordered that Chief Election Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield be summoned to appear before a city court after three private charges were filed against him over alleged chicanery in the tabulation of results from the March 2 polls.
In separate charges, Daniel Josh Kanhai, of The New Movement (TNM), and Desmond Morian, of the opposition People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), have accused Lowenfield of conspiracy to commit fraud to alter the results of the elections and misconduct in public office.
Their lawyers, attorneys-at-law Glenn Hanoman, Mark Conway and George Thomas, who are expected to be serving as special prosecutors, indicated that they were unsuccessful in effecting service of the summons for Lowenfield to attend court yesterday.
Following the submission of the third charge yesterday, Hanoman told reporters that attempts made have Lowenfield served had been unsuccessful due to his security detail at his office and home being “unhelpful”.
“It would appear as though some of the security personnel who are guarding premises that he is connected to, his office and his home, they are unhelpful to him getting served. So we are going to try again, using the police, to serve Mr. Lowenfield,” Hanoman explained.
Once summoned, Lowenfield is expected to appear before the court on July 24th.
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, and carries 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.
A third charge, sworn to by Morian, was also filed yesterday alleging a conspiracy to commit a felony. It states that between March 5th and June 23rd, Lowenfield conspired with a person or persons unknown to commit fraud by representing to GECOM that the tables in his March 14th Elections Report reflected the true results of the elections, knowing that the tabulation was false, in order to materially alter the results of the elections.
Although the results of a 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, Lowenfield last week submitted a report to GECOM which discards over 115,000 votes. 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.
