The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) is expected to make a decision on whether the criminal charges instituted against Chief Election Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield will be allowed to move forward.
Lowenfield currently faces fraud and misconduct charges, which were filed by private citizens over his handling of the results from the March 2nd polls.
The matters were due for a report before Principal Magistrate Faith McGusty yesterday in Georgetown, where prosecutors Sanjeev Datadin and Glenn Hanoman explained that the DPP wrote them asking to review the available evidence in order to decide on the charges.
Datadin explained that Lowenfield’s attorney, Nigel Hughes, wrote to the DPP and asked her to review the charges.
“So the DPP has written to us… to ask for the files so that she could consider what is going to be the position of the DPP and we have complied with that,” Datadin told the media after the hearing fixed for yesterday was adjourned. He further noted that the prosecution is willing to comply with whatever decision is made by the DPP.
Despite Hughes asking that Lowenfield be placed on self-bail when he was arraigned, he is currently on $150,000 bail for each charge against him.
It is alleged that between March 5th and June 23rd, 2020, Lowenfield conspired with a person or persons unknown to commit the common law offence of fraud 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 New Movement candidate Daniel Kanhai is listed as the complainant for this charge.
A second charge states that while performing his duty as CEO, Lowenfield willfully misconducted himself by ascertaining results of the elections “knowing the said results to be false,” without lawful excuse or justification. That charge was brought by People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) candidate Desmond Morian.A third charge, also brought by Morian, alleges that 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.
Since the matters were first heard last month, the People’s Progressive Party has been declared as the winner of the March 2nd Election and President Mohamed Irfaan Ali has been sworn in as the country’s ninth president.
