CJ to rule today on APNU/AFC agent’s petition to block recount-based declaration

All eyes will be on Chief Justice (ag) Roxane George today as she is expected to rule on the APNU/AFC’s challenge which is seeking to block the elections declaration based on the National Recount figures.

In addition, the Chief Justice is expected to address the powers of the Chief Elections Officer, Keith Lowenfield, who is subordinate to the Commission or will be allowed free rein to submit whatever election results he wishes and become Guyana’s kingmaker.

Justice George is scheduled to make a virtual ruling on the Misenga Jones vs

GECOM et al matter at 16:00h. Jones, who is an A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC) supporter, is seeking, among other things, to compel GECOM to use the declarations from the ten Returning Officers (ROs) in order to declare a winner of the March 2 General and Regional Elections.

However, these declarations are tainted by the fraudulent declaration of Region Four Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo, who was exposed by the 33-day National Recount to have inflated APNU/AFC votes to give the incumbent President David Granger an overall win. Moreover, these declarations were invalidated by the Chairperson of GECOM herself, Retired Justice Claudette Singh.

Jones, whose financial ability to retain the high-profile former Attorney General of Trinidad, Senior Counsel John Jeremie, has stumped observers, is also seeking an order that the GECOM Commission does not have the constitutional authority to direct Lowenfield on what final report he can or cannot submit.
This is despite the clear provisions of Section 18 of the Election Laws (Amendment) Act No 15 of 2000. Section 18 states that “the Chief Election Officer and the Commissioner of Registration shall notwithstanding anything in any written law be subject to the direction and control of the Commission.”
Section 18 of the Election Laws (Amendment) Act, is buttressed by order 60 of 2020, which created the parameters of the recount.

Insubordination
Retired Justice Singh had written Lowenfield on June 16, instructing him to prepare a final report based on the recount which showed that the opposition People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) won the elections with 233,336 votes while the APNU/AFC coalition garnered 217,920.
Instead, Lowenfield had submitted a report invalidating over 115,000 votes based on unsubstantiated allegations of dead and migrant voters, made by the APNU/AFC. Lowenfield’s actions caused an immediate uproar and the varying sides found themselves in the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) for the Irfaan Ali et al v Eslyn David et al case.
Among other decisions, the CCJ ruled in a unanimous decision that Lowenfield’s report which arbitrarily disenfranchised voters was invalid and that the concerns raised by the APNU/AFC coalition must be addressed in an elections petition.
The GECOM Chair wrote Lowenfield again, instructing him to submit his report so that the President could be declared. However, Lowenfield then engaged in a back and forth with the Chair in which sections of the CCJ judgement were twisted and misconstrued.
He then submitted a fraudulent report to Justice Singh, in which he included the fraudulent declarations of embattled Returning Officer for Region Four Clairmont Mingo, which inaccurately shows that the PPP/C gained 80,920 votes while the APNU/AFC received 116,941 votes in Region Four.

Valid
APNU/AFC have moved mountains in their efforts to argue that the CCJ, by their ruling, invalidated the recount and thus the recount results cannot be used to declare a winner or instruct Lowenfield. However, this is an argument that was torn to shreds during Friday’s hearings.
Trinidadian Senior Counsel, Douglas Mendes, who represents PPP/C Presidential Candidate, Dr Irfaan Ali, and General Secretary Bharrat Jagdeo, had argued that Jones erred in bringing her case to the acting Chief Justice since the case did not take the form of an election petition. And an election petition is filed after a President is elected.
Mendes had argued that the High Court does not have any jurisdiction to determine whether Section 22 of the Elections Laws (Amendment) Act is unconstitutional; whether Order 60 is valid; whether the recount is valid; whether the declarations made by Mingo were valid or not – all of which are being sought by the applicant, among other orders – simply because these are matters that are required by law to be determined via an elections petition.
“So, this case is a non-starter… All of [the] questions you are being asked to determine in these proceedings are questions which the Court of Appeal already said are to be asked under an elections petition [in the Ulita Moore case],” the Senior Counsel had posited.
Mendes had also stressed to the court that GECOM cannot and should not act on figures it knows are fraudulent. He had cited authorities in which the law is very clear whereby if unlawful advice is given then the party receiving the advice is not obliged to act upon it.

Sanctions
Whether those arguments will find favour with Justice George remains to be seen. It is now approaching five months since Guyanese went to the polls and voted, and the international community has demonstrated that its patience with what it views as APNU/AFC’s attempts to frustrate the work of GECOM is wearing thin.
Last week, the United States had announced that they are slapping officials in Guyana who are undermining democracy, with visa restrictions. The decision was announced by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, during a press conference. According to Pompeo, these visa restrictions can also be applied to the immediate family members of those persons.
Pompeo did not name the officials who were targeted. US Ambassador to Guyana Sarah-Ann Lynch has said that for privacy reasons, the names will not be disclosed. However, this publication has received reports that the list includes a prominent financier of the APNU/AFC Government, as well as several APNU/AFC Ministers, election officials and even judicial officers.