Election fraud cases: Judiciary must address delays – Jagdeo

…says “we’re ready to prosecute but can’t control the courts”

Acknowledging the widespread public frustration over the delays in the trial of the elections fraud charges stemming from the 2020 General and Regional Elections, General Secretary of the ruling People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) has stated that even though all the evidence is there to prosecute the cases, it is up to the judiciary to accelerate the proceedings.
During his weekly press conference at the PPP’s Freedom House headquarters on Thursday, Jagdeo declared that, “I know that people are frustrated. We’ve done all we could to accelerate these trials but we don’t control the judiciary.”
“We ready to prosecute. We have all the evidence to demonstrate that there was a coordinated attempt to steal the elections between [the PNC-led] APNU and these individuals and we’re just waiting to present. And we hope that the process will… just continue because we can’t talk about acceleration now, it’s already been long delayed,” the General Secretary added.
While lamenting on the persistent delays, Jagdeo went onto suggest that there could be a deliberate attempt at play.

“It seems as though some people [like those who are opposition-aligned] get these preferences… They somehow managed to get their cases delayed forever but if you have persons associated with the PPP, like some libel cases and stuff like that [that] we’ve seen, they’ve fly through the court like a hurricane. But you try to sue someone from the APNU side, it takes ages to get it done. So, I hope it’s not an inherent bias against the government,” the PPP General Secretary posited.
Only last month, Jagdeo had stated that given the pace of the trials in the local courts, he has no doubts that this high-profile matter could end up in the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) – the highest level of judicial redress for Guyana.
The elections fraud trials commenced on July 29 for several individuals facing charges of alleged irregularities during the general elections in 2020. Being heard before Senior Magistrate Leron Daly at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court, the trial was expected to run from July 29 to September 13 but only three hearings have been completed so far.
The matter was initially deferred to August 5 but the parties were informed that the presiding magistrate was out sick and the matter would be heard the following day. However, they were subsequently told that the magistrate has been placed on 30 days of sick leave.
When contacted, Special Prosecutor and King’s Counsel Darshan Ramdhani, related to this newspaper that he only found out about the Magistrate’s sick leave on the afternoon of Tuesday, August 6.
“We have started the trial; we have put witnesses in the box and our witnesses are ready. And we’re ready to proceed with the matter,” Ramdhani had stated.
Alter results
So far, Local Government and Regional Development Minister Sonia Parag has testified. In her testimony, Parag recalled acts of misconduct she witnessed from GECOM staff during the 2020 General and Regional Elections. Her testimony included witnessing efforts by GECOM staff to alter the results by deducting People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) votes and adding votes to the then-ruling A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC).
She had also testified that despite a Court Order from acting Chief Justice Roxane George which compelled GECOM to use only the Statements of Poll (SOPs) to tabulate the numbers for the Region Four (Demerara/Mahaica) votes, Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo, one of those now on trial, continued to conduct the tabulation using a projector and bedsheet.
The prosecution, led by KC Ramdhani, had complained that witnesses are not being allowed to freely testify as they should. At the last hearing, Magistrate Daly acknowledged that not allowing certain testimony was indeed an error. As such, she gave permission for the reopening of the examination of the witness, Minister Parag.
Nine persons are before the court in relation to electoral fraud. They are former Returning Officer for Region Four, Clairmont Mingo; former Chief Elections Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield; his former Deputy, Roxanne Myers; former People’s National Congress/ Reform (PNCR) Chairperson Volda Lawrence; PNCR activist Carol Smith-Joseph; and GECOM employees Sheffern February, Enrique Livan, Michelle Miller and Denise Babb-Cummings.
They are facing 28 charges relating to electoral fraud. Among the offences these defendants are accused of committing are: misconduct while holding public office; presenting falsified documentation; and planning to manipulate Guyana’s voters by presenting an inaccurate vote total.
These charges stem from attempts to rig the 2020 General and Regional Elections in favour of the then-ruling APNU/AFC. The election report of former CEO Lowenfield claimed that the APNU/AFC Coalition garnered 171,825 votes, while the PPP/C gained 166,343 votes.
How he arrived at those figures is still unknown, since the certified results from the recount exercise supervised by GECOM and a high-level team from the Caribbean Community (Caricom) pellucidly showed that the PPP/C won with 233,336 votes, while the coalition garnered 217,920.
Following the recount, PPP’s Irfaan Ali was declared President of Guyana on August 2, 2020 – some five months after the March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections. (G8)