APNU+AFC vows to appeal High Court’s ruling in recount case

The incumbent APNU+AFC Coalition has said that it will seek to take the Misenga Jones application adjudicated by Chief Justice Roxane George-Wiltshire to the next level of the Court system, the Court of Appeal. The opposition PPP/C has, in turn, described this as an abuse of the judiciary, and has condemned it to failure.

Jones, an APNU+AFC surrogate, had approached the High Court hoping for the Chief Justice to pass down a judgment which would force the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to rely on the ten district declarations as the basis on which a final declaration is made. Since Region Four Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo’s fraudulent March 13 declaration is included in the lot, Jones application – if it had been successful – would have handed a false national victory to the party she represents.

Jones’ action sought to invalidate the recount order, on grounds that the Chief Justice found to be “hopelessly flawed”.
In her ruling, George Wiltshire decided that the Court had jurisdiction to hear the matter, but ruled that it could not invalidate the recount order as the reliefs sought were already adjudicated by the Court of Appeal and the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), whose adjudications determined the order to be valid. She also ruled that the declarations of the Returning Officers have been overtaken by the recount, as GECOM invoked its authority to resolve difficulties arising from the process by ordering a national recount. That recount confirmed that the Region Four declaration of March 13 was produced through a fraudulent tabulation process.

The Chief Justice also substantially ruled that Chief Elections Officer could not “be a lone ranger” and that he is subject to the direction and control of the Commission. All in all, Jones’ application was dismissed.
Immediately after the judgment concluded, APNU+AFC candidate Roysdale Forde and member of Jones’ legal team, told the Court that the matter would be appealed. While the Coalition was not a formal party to the case, APNU+AFC campaign manager Joseph Harmon confirmed Forde’s intention, saying in a brief statement sent late last night that, “Our lawyers will engage at the next level of the Court System to ensure that our Constitution is respected and adhered to by all.”

Commenting on the ruling, Harmon stated, “It is disappointing that in its ruling today, in the case of Misenga Jones v GECOM et al, the Court has side stepped the issue of fraudulent ballots in the tabulated votes at the Recount.”
APNU+AFC has not proven a single case of electoral fraud, let alone the thousands it claimed there were. Kaieteur News had performed sustained investigations on those claims during the recount, and pressed the Coalition’s officials to provide proof several times. It yielded no results.

This was corroborated by the CARICOM Scrutineer Team, who rejected the public efforts to discredit the March 2 polls, and stated that no evidence was provided to substantiate the claims.
“We will continue to insist,” Harmon stated, “that Fraudulent Recount Votes cannot determine the will of the Guyanese People. Only valid votes can produce such a result… We remain steadfast in making our case for valid votes only.”
While the Coalition, including most recently, de facto President David Granger, has continued to allege fraud in the ballot boxes, they have so ignored the fraudulent result produced by Mingo in the Coalition’s favour. Mingo’s declaration had produced more than 15,000 ghost votes, which no one could account for, yet his declaration has been repeatedly endorsed by APNU+AFC.

Guyana’s apex court, the Caribbean Court of Justice had put the contention over “valid votes” to rest when, in its judgment in Irfaan Ali vs. Eslyn David et al, it ruled that the Representation of the People Act already determined that valid votes were votes so determined on the face of the ballots. The CCJ had ruled that the Appeal Court’s judgment, which sought to modify the definition of valid votes according to the Coalition’s intention, was unlawful.

In its statement on the matter, the PPP/C noted a section of the Chief Justice’s ruling, in which she stated, “there must be finality to judicial decisions. Myriad persons cannot be permitted to engage the court with multiple applications regarding the same issue, which has been decided, and shield behind the claim that they were not a party to the previous proceedings. To so permit would be to waste precious judicial time and resources. In short order – this cannot be allowed.”

The party stated, “The Chief Justice found that the issues litigated had already “been decided by superior courts” and signaled her intent to penalize Jones in costs.”
This, juxtaposed against the Coalition’s intention to appeal the decision, led the PPP/C to conclude that the Coalition is operating in abuse of the Court’s process. The party stated, however, that it is confident that no attempt to thwart the will of the electorate will succeed.
“We the PPP/C,” the party stated, “together with members of civil society, all of the contesting parties and the international community will continue our united stand to do all we can to protect Guyana’s democracy.”