Police to probe criminal conduct by Mingo, Lowenfield

Attempt to rig elections

The Guyana Police Force will be launching 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.

In a statement issued on Friday, the Police said that “formal reports” were received that day, 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.
The missive went on to say that the DPP, Shalimar Ali-Hack, has further 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 Magistrate’s Court.

Article 187 (1) (b) states: “The Director of Public Prosecutions shall have power in any case in which he [or she] considers it desirable… to take over and continue any such criminal proceedings that may have been instituted by any other person or authority…”
The Chief Elections Officer has been 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.
Meanwhile, Charles Ramson Jr had filed private criminal charges 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.
That matter was called up in the court only last week, and is set for hearing again on Monday.
Lowenfield’s matter was also rescheduled for Monday, after his lawyers wrote the DPP asking for the charges against him to be discontinued. The presiding magistrate had adjourned the matter to await a decision from the DPP.

Files submitted
Attorney Glen Hanoman, who is representing both Kanhai and Morian, told Guyana Times on Friday that now that the DPP has taken over the charges and the Police are also probing the matter, he is not sure what would be the way forward.
However, he did note that he had submitted four files to the Chambers of the DPP earlier in the day, and they contain all the evidence that had been gathered regarding the misconduct of both Lowenfield and Mingo.
“So I can tell you that I delivered a lot of evidence to the DPP Office, and because of that, we have every expectation that the matter would be continued by the DPP,” the attorney posited.
He explained that the evidence submitted was requested by the DPP in her deliberations over the request made by the defence counsel to discontinue the matter.
Hanoman said the request was premature, since the defence counsel provided no valid ground to have the matters discontinued, and he expects that the DPP would continue to pursue the charges already filed.
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.

Forensic review
Meanwhile, the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government recently announced that it will be launching a “forensic review” into the events that unfolded after the March elections, and hold persons accountable for attempting to subvert democracy in Guyana over the past five months.
During his Inauguration Address, President Dr Irfaan Ali said that Government has an obligation to the nation and to itself to ensure that no other generation of Guyanese is subjected to such unlawful behaviour which had transpired over the past five months when the country was embroiled in a political and electoral impasse.
“All of us are painfully aware of the trauma and anguish that our people endured over the past five months, as vigorous attempts were made to destroy our democratic credentials and deny the will of the electorate… Therefore, a review of events related to the electoral process over the last five months will begin shortly, in order to determine forensically exactly what transpired, and to hold accountable any persons who sought to pervert and corrupt the system,” the Head of State had declared.
Attorney General Anil Nandlall had subsequently explained that there are several options available to pursue the forensic review: a Commission of Inquiry (CoI), a forensic and/or a “deep probing police” investigation.
This move by the newly elected Government to probe the post-election events comes on the heels of the United States already issuing visa sanctions against officials here who were found to be responsible for undermining Guyana’s democracy. The United Kingdom had subsequently announced that it has also started to put systems in place for “consequences” against such individuals. (G8)