The A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) has filed the election petition challenging both the March 2 General and Regional Elections and the National Recount that followed it – without the benefit of their long-awaited Statements of Poll (SOPs).
From left: Senior Counsel Roysdale Forde, AFC Leader Khemraj Ramjattan, “presumptive” Opposition Leader Joseph Harmon and APNU Leader David Granger, as they pose with their election petition outside the High Court
The petition was filed at the High Court at around 10:00h on Monday, by Senior Counsel Roysdale Forde, on behalf of applicants Claudette Thorne and Heston Bostwick. Also representing the petitioners are Trinidadian Senior Counsel John Jeremie and Attorneys-at-Law Raphael Trotman and Olayne Joseph.
After the petition was filed, Forde was joined by APNU leader and former President David Granger, as well as “presumptive” Opposition Leader Joseph Harmon and AFC Leader Khemraj Ramjattan.
In his interaction with the media, Granger claimed that the petition documents evidence his party has of irregularities at the March 2 polls. He expressed hope that the Judiciary gives due consideration to their evidence.
“We have compiled a dossier of anomalies and irregularities. And APNU/AFC coalition I convinced that if due consideration is given to those anomalies and irregularities, it will be shown that the declaration which was issued on August 2nd, is incorrect. So, we have set out today (Monday) to establish the invalidity of that declaration.”
There is, however, the matter of the Statements of Poll, which are tabulated at every Polling Station on election night and, when combined, usually form the basis for the declaration of election results.
APNU/AFC has so far stubbornly refused to release their SoPs, despite the fact that this would have provided the coalition with some basis for claiming they won the elections. They have made this claim despite the 33-day recount establishing that the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) won the elections by 15,416 votes.
Region Four Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo, who is before the courts on charges of misconduct in public office, conspiracy to issue fraudulent declarations of the election results in Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica), could have also benefitted from the SoPs. When asked about it, Forde noted that nothing has changed and there’s no relevance in releasing the documents.
“As we’ve said repeatedly, the elections were not decided on the Statements of Poll. The elections were decided on the recount. So, if we’re challenging the results of the elections, it must be on the basis of the Statements of Recount and those documents. It is not relevant to the issues we’re asking the courts to determine,” Forde explained.
After the 2015 election, the People’s Progressive Party filed an election petition that never saw the light of day after languishing for years in the High Court. According to Forde, APNU/AFC wants their petition expedited.
Petition
The 35-page election petition names the representatives for all the political parties who contested the elections, including Granger for APNU/AFC and Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo for the PPP/C.
In the petition, APNU/AFC contend that Mingo made a valid declaration of votes and that Chief Elections Officer Keith Lowenfield complied with Section 96 of the Representation of the People Act when he provided GECOM with a report using declarations that included Mingo’s.
They also referenced High Court Judge Franklyn Holder’s ruling in Jagdeo and Holladar v the Returning Officer, where he had ruled to the effect that only an election petition could set aside Mingo’s declaration.
The petition contends that Order 60 of 2020, which established the recount that produced the PPP/C as the winner of the elections, is unconstitutional and inconsistent with the provisions of the Representation of the People Act.
However, Chief Justice Roxane George had already ruled on July 20, 2020, that the recount order was valid and must form the basis for declaring the winner of the General and Regional Elections.
She had upheld a previous ruling by the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), which had validated the use of Order 60 to cater for the various disputes and contentions that arose after polling day, ie the fraudulent declaration of District Four (Demerara-Mahaica) results by Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo.
Null and void
APNU/AFC is also seeking an order to declare the elections null and void and in violation of the Constitution, the Representation of the People Act and Order 60. They are also seeking to nullify the declaration of current President Dr Irfaan Ali as the winner of the elections.
While APNU/AFC have not included their SoPs in the petition’s supporting documents, they did include the form that Mingo used to declare the results for Region Four, with controversial APNU member Carol Joseph as his witness. On the form, Mingo listed the total number of valid votes for all lists as 217,425 and gave APNU/AFC 136,057 votes and the PPP/c 77,231 votes.
In reality, the recount and audit of the ballot boxes found that a total of 202,077 votes were cast in Region Four, with 116,941 for APNU/AFC and 80,920 for PPP/C. It, therefore, means that Mingo conjured up in excess of 15,000 phantom voters for which there are no ballots, in order to gift a win to APNU/AFC… a conjuring they are yet to explain. (G3)
