Questions raised after Volda Lawrence’s signature seen on declaration

Unverified Region 4 results

As the Region Four (Demerara-Mahaica) unverified vote count continues to engage the attention of the High Court, questions are being asked as to the capacity in which the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) executive, Volda Lawrence signed document. Guyana Elections Commission, despite being barred by an injunction, went ahead and published the Form 24s for all regions on its website. This included the Region Four unverified declaration. On the form, there is the signature of Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo and that of Lawrence. All of the Form 24s that were published by GECOM on its website had GECOM’s stamp with the RO’s signature. However, a close examination of Region Four’s form shows that Lawrence’s signature was affixed below that of the RO.

PNCR executive Volda Lawrence

The tabulation of the Region Four Statements of Poll (SOPs) has been the subject of widespread criticism from the international community, local observers, civil society and Guyanese. The breakdown of the tabulation process started last Tuesday when at about 21:00h, the RO, Mingo informed the parties and GECOM that he was tired and abruptly halted the verification process. The process was again halted about three hours into the resumption of the verification process on Wednesday evening, controversy rose again after a suggestion was made to suspend the activity.
Two clerks, one of whom is heavily pregnant, were placed in charge of the verification process by RO Mingo and had complained about tiredness sometime after 20:00h on Wednesday.
But stakeholders, including many of the various parties’ representatives, objected to suspension of the verification process resulting in the Chief Election Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield making arrangements for at least two Deputy ROs to go in to continue the verification.

RO Clairmont Mingo

Many persons came out lashing out at GECOM for not having a contingency plan in place to deal with situations like this. It was pointed out that there are about 80 DROs in Region Four but no arrangements were made to have a rotation system amongst them to ensure that the process continues to the end, as was committed to earlier by the CEO.
Nevertheless, with the exception of party agents from the APNU/AFC who had left the Centre, stakeholders from the political parties as well as observers, both local and international, remained there in hopes that the process would resume and be completed during the course of the night in order to ensure that the Region Four results are declared at soonest. The CEO had promised that the tabulation would have been completed in accordance with the Representation of People’s Act. However, this was never done.
On Monday this newspaper was unable to reach GECOM’s Public Relations Officer, Yoland Ward and Volda Lawerence for a comment on the issue. As a matter of fact, since the illegal declaration of the unverified result for the region, the RO and GECOM’s CEO have disappeared. Additionally, GECOM Chair Claudette Singh has not made a public appearance nor has she hosted a press conference to deal with the issues surrounding the illegal declaration.
Observers – invited by the Government to observe the elections so as to vouch for its validity – contacted the media to vent their frustration and disappointment in not being able to get answers from the mentioned officials, especially the latter two.
Many of these officials have wide experience in observing elections and they insist that the officials’ refusal to meet with observers does not bode well for the elections machinery of Guyana, since these individuals are not politicians vying for power, but public officials, who are supposed to be impartial in executing their duties on behalf of the country.