Personal Assistant (PA) to Chief Elections Officer (CEO) of the Guyana Elections Commission, Keith Lowenfield was on Tuesday taken into Police custody for questioning in relation to an ongoing investigation into electoral fraud.
Personal Assistant to the Chief Elections Officer, Duarte Hetsberger
Crime Chief Wendell Blanhum, when contacted on Tuesday evening, confirmed that Duarte Hetsberger was arrested and is being questioned in relation to events after Guyana’s General and Regional Elections on March 2, 2020.
Blanhum did not divulge other details surrounding his involvement in the active investigations. He nevertheless stated that investigations are ongoing. Thus far, several persons were arrested and charged including Enrique Livan and Sheffaun February. In addition, Carolyn Duncan, a registration officer, was also taken into custody.
So far, no charges have been instituted against her.
Nevertheless, these arrests were made after the Guyana Police Force was ordered to launch an investigation into the role played by Chief Elections Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield and embattled Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo in the blatant attempts to rig the March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections.
The police had stated that “formal reports” were received alleging “criminal conduct” by Lowenfield and Mingo, as well as others in relation to the elections and the events that followed thereafter.
“As a result, legal advice was obtained from the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), and the Guyana Police Force was advised to launch a comprehensive investigation into these allegations” in accordance with its mandate.
Chief Elections Officer Keith Lowenfield
However, the Chief Elections Officer was slapped with private criminal charges for fraud, misconduct in office, and breach of public trust, which were filed by private citizens Josh Kanhai and Desmond Morian. He is currently on $450,000 bail.
But the Director of Public Prosecutions, Shalimar Ali-Hack had indicated that in the exercise of powers vested in her under Article 187 of the Constitution, she would take over the private criminal charges currently pending against Lowenfield in the Magistrates’ Courts.
In addition, private criminal charges were also filed against RO Mingo and Chairperson of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) Volda Lawrence back in March, contending that they attempted to forge a Form 24 document which had shown a win for the A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance for Change (APNU/AFC) coalition with the intention to defraud the public.
Those figures were widely rejected by the other political parties that contested the elections, as well as by observers, both local and international.
Lawrence made her appearance at the Magistrates’ Courts on Monday last and was placed on $100,000 bail while Mingo was slapped with additional misconduct in public office charges and was placed on $600,000 bail.
The protracted electoral process since the March 2 polls has been marred by a series of litigation, and a National Recount had to be conducted to ascertain the valid votes cast. The results from the 33-day exercise showed the PPP/C with a victory, having obtained 233,336 votes while its main political rival, the APNU/AFC obtained 217,920 votes – a difference of 15,416 votes.
During that exercise, it was found that RO Mingo had heavily inflated the votes from Guyana’s largest voting district in favour of the coalition, the event that initiated the recount in the first place.
The recount was certified by a special team of scrutineers from the Caribbean Community (Caricom) which said in its report to the Guyana Elections Commission that, “…nothing that we witnessed warrants a challenge to the inescapable conclusion that the recount results are acceptable and should constitute the basis of the declaration of the results of the March 2, 2020 elections.”
But despite former President and Leader of the APNU/AFC, David Granger, having deemed the Caricom team the “most legitimate interlocutor” at the time, his party refused to accept the recount results and filed two sets of legal proceedings.
These proceedings passed through the High and Appeal Courts here in Guyana, as well as the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) – the country’s apex court – before the path was finally paved for GECOM to declare the elections results using the recount figures. The declaration was made on August 2 and the new President was immediately sworn in – exactly five months after the Guyanese people had gone to the polls.
