The Liberty and Justice Party (LJP) has written the Chairperson of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) urging the immediate dismissal of Keith Lowenfield from the post of Chief Election Officer (CEO).
In the letter, signed by LJP leader Lenox Shuman, the party claims that Lowenfield’s actions over the last four months have led to a “complete and absolute loss of confidence” and should consequently cause him to be dismissed.
“We are resolute in our view that Lowenfield has completely and absolutely lost the confidence of the Guyanese electorate, and we believe [this] provides undisputable grounds for [his] immediate removal/termination from his post as CEO and for his expeditious replacement with a candidate more amicable to the terms and operations of law abiding statutory officers in democratic institutions,” the letter states.
The actions which LJP contend have undermined the office of the CEO include the exercise of authority not vested in his office and wilfully attempting to disenfranchise more than 115, 000 voters by wanting to invalidate said number of votes.
In the submission of a report of what he deemed “valid and credible votes,” Lowenfield 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 and he defended his decision by saying that he has acted lawfully.
With the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) expected to rule this week on contentious polling issues that have prevent GECOM from making a final declaration, Lowenfield’s tenure may also become the subject of Commission’s scrutiny. However, commissioners who were contacted yesterday had no comment on the content of the LJP’s letter.
According to the letter, Lowenfield has provided a report of the March 2 elections recount contrary to the directions of the Commission, and act which it described as “gross insubordination.”
It also charges the CEO with gross negligence for failing to safeguard elections documents and failing to provide clear written instructions to the Presiding Officers on polling day as to how to safeguard documents and which documents to seal within the poll boxes.
This is a clear reference to missing statutory documents for 29 polling stations along the East Coast corridor. During the National Recount, each of the ballot boxes used at these polling stations was found to be missing all documentation except for ballots cast. Among the missing documents were the used ballot counterfoils, poll books, Official Lists of Electors and official stamp.
While the Presiding Officers in charge of these polling stations have claimed that the Clerk for Returning Officer (RO) Clairmont Mingo directed that they include these documents in the RO’s package rather than the ballot box, GECOM’s Secretariat has said the documents are not in the possession of the RO or the CEO. (Although the LJP has claimed POs were not provided written instructions on what to include within ballots boxes each PO as part of training is provided a polling day manual which explains this in detail.)
The party also states that Lowenfield deliberately declined to disclose the Statements of Poll (SOPs) to the Commission, the parties, the court and the public, knowingly and recklessly provided an elections report based on and containing false, inaccurate and fraudulent information declared by Mingo and displayed a lack of lmpartiality.
The Lowenfield report submitted on March 14th did include numbers declared by Mingo, which have since be proven to have been manufactured. Lowenfield has been accused of attempting to invalidate votes after the Statements of Recounts and Official Certificates of Tabulation for the 10 Electoral Districts had been issued.
According to the verified recount results, the majority of the 460,295 ballots cast on March 2 were in favour of the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C), with LJP as part of a joinder of list securing enough votes for one shared seat.
