Electoral fraud case: Prosecution wins battle to re-examine witness

– as case adjourned to August 5

On Day Three of the trial concerning the individuals accused of electoral fraud, tensions flared between the prosecution and defense. The court, however, made clear decisions about which evidence would be permitted from witnesses, addressing the prosecution’s concerns that the witnesses were being obstructed in their testimony.

On Wednesday, the trial into the 2020 electoral fraud continued before Senior Magistrate Leron Daly at the Georgetown Magistrates Court but instead of witnesses being called to testify, matters of concern were discussed between the prosecution, defense and the court.
For some time the prosecution, led by Special Prosecutor and King’s Counsel Darshan Ramdhani has been complaining that witnesses are not being allowed to freely testify as they should. While Ramdhani has contended that witnesses should be allowed to expand on their previous statements, the defense has countered that information not previously disclosed to them should not be admitted on record.
Magistrate Daly acknowledged on Wednesday that not allowing certain testimony that concerned one of the defendants, former Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) staff Michelle Miller, was indeed an error. As such, the Magistrate permitted the reopening of the examination of the witness, in this case, Local Government Minister Sonia Parag.

Parag testified from Monday to Tuesday on the misconduct she witnessed from GECOM staff during the 2020 General and Regional elections. Her testimony had 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 Roxanne 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.

Meanwhile, during Wednesday’s proceedings, there was also a fiery exchange between Ramdhani and defense Counsel Eusi Anderson, after he accused the defense of personal attacks, prompting the court’s intervention.
A decision was eventually taken for the court to be adjourned until August 5, 2024. The trial is set to last from July 29 to September 13, some four years after the 2020 General and Regional Elections. Outside the courtroom, Ramdhani reiterated the importance of witnesses being allowed to give their testimony unhindered and, if necessary, to implicate other persons.
“We made some submissions about the admissibility of evidence; you would have heard us speak about that. Questions about hearsay evidence, how it is to be used, a man, who says something, whether he is charged, whether that evidence can be used against another defendant, whether that defendant is in his presence or not,” Ramdhani explained to the media.
In addition to Mingo and Miller, 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 and Denise Babb-Cummings, are facing twenty-eight 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 stemmed 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. (G-3)