No confidence in Lowenfield – GCCI tells GECOM Chair

…actions of staff show a compromised GECOM – FITUG

The Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) has written Chair of the Guyana Elections Commission, Retired Justice Claudette Singh, expressing a loss of confidence in her Chief Elections Officer, Keith Lowenfield.

In a letter written by GCCI President Nicholas Boyer, he informed the GECOM Chair that Lowenfield’s report submitted last week lacks credibility. In that report, Lowenfield had injected his opinion and argued that coalition unproven claims of migrant and dead voters were enough to invalidate the elections.
GCCI said it was incredible that Lowenfield could mention election credibility and A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change’s (APNU/AFC) unproven allegations in one breath, but then make no mention of the blatantly fraudulent figures declared by Region Four Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo.

“We are concerned not only about the credibility of this process but also what the CEO’s actions mean for public perception of the integrity of the March 2, 2020 GRE. The CEO appears to have used the authority that comes with the post of Chief Elections Officer to take unverified information and legitimise it to both the Commission, and obviously, the public,” GCCI said.
This, the letter said, conforms wholly with a public campaign that the APNU/AFC has been waging to discredit the entire March 2, 2020 elections now that the recount exercise has proven beyond doubt that GECOM did indeed declare fraudulent District Four elections results.
GCCI pointed out that they were not allowed to verify that these alleged illegal voters were, in fact, issued ballots. The Chamber said that when they asked to see the names ticked off on the Official List of Electors, this was denied. According to GCCI, however, GECOM staff appeared to be assisting APNU/AFC by providing information about voters using the Official List of Electors.

“During the recount exercise, at the beginning of the recount for each ballot box, APNU+AFC agents would call out a large list of serial numbers and object to those voters on the grounds that they impersonated the dead or were out of the jurisdiction. They sometimes called serial numbers not related to the ballot box.”
“GECOM staff would then tell the APNU+AFC agents whether any of those serial numbers were marked as voted on the Official List of Electors (OLE). No one was afforded the opportunity to witness the OLEs and verify whether the information being given by GECOM staff was authentic. The APNU+AFC agents never asked. Requests by other party agents were denied.”

No evidence
Despite the lack of evidence, these objections were still recorded in the objection reports. GCCI raised objections to the prominence Lowenfield placed in these allegations. The Chamber criticised the fact that the verification process of these claims cited by Lowenfield failed to meet basic standards of transparency.
“It failed to meet basic standards of transparency in allowing persons against whom claims were being made the opportunity to know and respond, as would be afforded in a basic claims and objections process. Therefore, there is no credibility whatsoever at any level of this exercise or to anything for which the information was used,” GCCI said.
“In his treatment of the APNU-AFC objections in his report to the Commission on the recount, the CEO omitted to mention that all political party agents present objected to the APNU+AFC objections. He treats the APNU+AFC objections as credible and goes on to claim that through an opaque bilateral process with relevant authorities, GECOM was able to receive information confirming these allegations to be true.”
GCCI, therefore, called for GECOM to exclude Lowenfield’s summary of the observation reports from consideration. Legal luminaries have already said that GECOM cannot verify the claims made by APNU/AFC, rather this must be done in court via an elections petition.
“We have lost confidence entirely in Mr Lowenfield as the CEO and manager of the Secretariat of GECOM. We believe that it would be keeping with the purpose of free and fair elections to exclude the prejudicial report on Observation Reports submitted by the CEO to the Commission in your consideration of the results of the election.”

FITUG
Meanwhile, the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Guyana (FITUG) has slammed the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Chief Elections Officer Keith Lowenfield for his failure to deliver his report and has urged that the courts not be used to delay the inevitable.
FITUG made its feelings known in a statement on Friday. According to the Union, CEO Lowenfield’s actions are unacceptable and moreover, Lowenfield’s failure to hand over the report complicates GECOM’s work and has national implications.
The Union noted that GECOM’s failure to declare the election results adds to the frustration of the nation. They pointed out that Guyanese generally want to put the elections, held over three months ago, behind them.
“It appears to us, at least, that some elements in the (GECOM) Secretariat are very much compromised and will leave no stone unturned to thwart the will of the Guyanese electorate. This, for us, is a most unfortunate development and represents a naked and blatant attack on our democracy and institutions charged with upholding our democratic culture,” FITUG said.
Meanwhile, FITUG was critical of the motivations behind the court case filed by Eslyn David. The Union said that while it supports everyone’s right to judicial process, that right must not be abused.
They noted that the court must be approached in a responsible manner. FITUG, therefore, expressed hope that the court quickly addresses the matter. FITUG made it clear that the court must not be abused to delay the inevitable declaration GECOM must make.
On Tuesday, GECOM Chair Claudette Singh had asked Lowenfield to deliver a final report by Thursday, which would have allowed for a declaration of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) as the winners of the elections. Instead, Lowenfield chose not to deliver the report.
David, an APNU/AFC supporter, who inexplicably had a battery of lawyers representing her that included Mayo Robertson, filed a court case seeking to block the declaration. The case continues today, before Appeals Court Judges Rishi Persaud, Dawn Gregory and Brassington Reynolds.