Dear Concerned Guyanese,
An update to the current Guyana Elections re-count result and declarations. The Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) has completed the recount of the March 2nd 2020 General and Regional Elections on June 9th 2020. The recount tabulation confirmed that the PPP/C won the elections with 233, 336 votes, 15,416 votes more than the governing David Granger-led APNU+AFC Coalition. These results are consistent with the published Statement of Polls from election night and what international and local observers witnessed.
Notwithstanding this, GECOM”s Chief Elections Officer, Keith Lowenfield, on June 13th submitted his report to GECOM. This report exposed his complicity in the several attempts to steal the elections between March 5th and March 13th 2020 whereby he now deems the results of the recount for each of the ten (10) Electoral Districts as not meeting “the standard of fair and credible elections” based on the same baseless and unproven allegations as those of the APNU+AFC Coalition.
Photo courtesy http://upscalemagazine.com/
Glaringly, his report also makes no mention of the blatant attempts at rigging during the tabulation of the results of Electoral District 4 on March 5th 2020, by the GECOM District 4 Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo when he produced a spreadsheet of results for each polling station that did not match the Statements of Poll. On March 6th, Mr. Lowenfield hurriedly submitted the result of all 10 Electoral Districts to the Chair of GECOM and was only stopped through an injunction in the court. He again repeated this on March 14th and its those electoral results which the Chair of the GECOM has put in abeyance while the recount commenced on May 6, 2020.
These events of March 5th and 13th occurred in the presence of all the political party representatives, international and local electoral observers. Each of the international observer missions, the Commonwealth, the Organization of American States (OAS), the European Union, the CARICOM and the Carter Centre included in their reports that election day and the counting of the votes at each polling station the same night were free and fair but the process of the tabulation of the results of one Electoral District ( #4) was not credible and must not be used to swear in a new government.
In contrast to his willingness to declare the fraudulent results of March 5th and March 13th, Lowenfield’s June 13th Report not only stated that the results were not credible but he generated new numbers of “valid” votes based on the same baseless allegations of the APNU+AFC Coalition. In fact, these are the same number of invalid votes announced by the de facto President Granger on June 12th. Mr. Lowenfield reduced the total number of valid votes recounted from 460,352 to 185,260 (thereby disenfranchising 275,092 of the electorate) and then awarding 125,010 votes ( 67.5%) to the APNU+AFC Coalition and 56,627 votes to the PPP/C (30.5%) with the remainder allotted to the other parties.
Mr. Lowenfield’s report is ultra vires, unlawful and irrelevant with regards to what he as CEO is required to do in accordance with the Constitution and Electoral laws of Guyana. He is merely required to submit a tabulation of the results of the recount and a factual summary of the observations made during the recount of May 6th-June 9th 2020. Furthermore, opining on the credibility of elections by GECOM is also ultra vires as this is the exclusive purview of the courts after the official declaration of election results are made and the elected government takes office.
The declaration of the results of the Recount now rests with GECOM’s retired Justice Chair Claudette Singh and the six member Commission. Having received the report they must act within 3 days. Unfortunately there are concerns that the Chair, based on actions she has taken, will succumb to pressure from the APNU+AFC and not declare PPP/C as the rightful winners of the March 2 elections based on Lowenfield ‘s and APNU+AFC’s allegations of the credibility of the elections.
Any such declaration by GECOM’s Chair would be reprehensible; the will of the Guyanese people to vote at freely and fairly conducted elections would have been stolen and democracy would be further endangered.
De facto President Granger and other APNU+AFC leaders continue their vicious and boldfaced attacks on anyone opposed to these blatant attempts at electoral thievery. Most recent are the vitriolic attacks on former Prime Minister Golding who headed the OAS Electoral Observation Mission, former Prime Minister Owen Arthur, head of the Commonwealth Electoral Observation Mission, and, incoming Chair of the CARICOM, Prime Minster of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Dr. Ralph Gonsalves.
We again call on the international community to continue to play a critical role in defending and protecting Guyana’s democracy as a member of the Commonwealth, the OAS and the CARICOM to avoid the untold consequences of a rigged election installing an illegitimate government including sanctions, irreparable damage to the economy, international pariah status, regional instability, and widespread internal conflict.
Further we call you to urge the GECOM Chair Claudette Singh to declare the results of the recount and officially declare the rightful winner of the March 2 General and Regional Elections and to call on the de facto President Granger to honor his word to respect the results of the recount.
We acknowledge and thank you for the support you have already given and call on you to continue to monitor the constantly emerging situation in Guyana.
Yours truly,
Concerned Citizens Group
David Prasad
Sanjay Gupta
Morris Persaud
Peter Ramrayka
Harry Beharry
Dave Singh
Desmond Mohamed
Faiyaz Ali
Patsy Fagan
Sharon Bedaysee
Brian Bedaysee
Faoud Khan
Dr. Davendra Sharma
Dennis Kamiladin
Sabita Kamiladin
Dr. Ashmead (Bart) Sackrule
Satchie Ramnauth
E N Fernandes
Dahro Donovan
Vidyotama Sehmbi
