It would take a generation to repair damage to Guyana’s image

Head of the Electoral Observer Mission of the Organisation of American States (OAS), Bruce Golding, gave a comprehensive breakdown of recent developments in Guyana’s electoral process yesterday to the Permanent Council, during which he said that the damage done to Guyana’s image since March will take a generation and significant institutional reform to repair.

Such a view was premised by Golding on repeated attempts of certain electoral stakeholders to fraudulently alter the results of the elections to hand the APNU+AFC coalition a false national victory. This has resulted in an electoral process which has gone on for four and half a months, with more litigation likely to further protract the process.“A litmus test of any democracy,” the former Jamaica Prime Minister said, “is the peaceful and orderly transfer of power if that is so ordained by the expressed will of the people. Sadly, Guyana has failed that test. The people of Guyana are not to be blamed. They expressed their will in a commendably peaceful and orderly manner on March 2. But the pernicious actions of a few have wreaked considerable damage to Guyana’s image and reputation. Even if this debacle is soon and satisfactorily resolved, it will perhaps take a generation and significant institutional reform for that damage to be fully repaired. The people of Guyana did not deserve this.”

Golding, in a previous address to the OAS, had demonstrated how the Region Four Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo, produced altered figures by subtracting votes from the PPP/C on the statements of poll, and added votes to the APNU+AFC coalition.
Yesterday, he continued by explaining the events occurring during the national recount, then those after, to present day. The OAS has fielded observers to Guyana’s entire electoral process, inclusive of pre-polling day preparations, the conduct of the poll on Election Day, the counting of votes, the tabulation processes conducted by the Returning Officers, and the national vote recount.

Golding told the Permanent Council of the allegations made by the APNU+AFC agent during the recount, which were recorded in the observation reports drafted for each ballot box.
“A significant number of these allegations concerned unsubstantiated claims of voter impersonation,” Golding stated. “Neither the OAS electoral observer mission, nor any of the other accredited observers who visited polling stations on election day, hundreds of polling stations – I must point out – have reported any significant instances of objections based on impersonation made by the polling agents of the APNU+AFC who were present in most, if not, all polling stations.”

He reported that the polling day process was peaceful and orderly, and was so described by all observers.
At the end of the national recount, Golding said, the results were only minorly adjusted from those of the statements of poll, and “conclusively established the extent” to which Mingo altered the figures of the statements of poll from the District over which he was responsible, to give the coalition an overall majority.
The recount overtook Mingo’s fraud, and showed that the PPP/C got 233,336 votes, ahead of the APNU+AFC’s 217,920 votes.

Following the tabulation of those results, the CARICOM Scrutineer Team had released a report, determining that the elections were “reasonably credible”, that the recount results were “completely acceptable” and that they should form the basis of a final declaration.
Golding reported that the OAS team agreed with CARICOM’s findings.

The Permanent Council heard that Chief Elections Officer, Keith Lowenfield, upset the electoral process, after the recounted votes were tabulated, by going beyond the mandate given to him in the recount order.
“That is, by the stroke of his pen, he summarily discarded 60 percent of the ballots that had been counted and recounted. He adopted the specious methodology of discarding every single vote in those ballot boxes, where unproven instances of impersonation had been made.”

The Observer Chief told the nations present that there are only two stages during the electoral process where votes may be set aside, during a count after the close of poll, and at a recount, if it occurs.
“Beyond that, the invalidation of any ballot is the sole prerogative of the High Court, pursuant to an election petition that can be filed only after the results are officially declared.”

“Having taken onto himself the authority exclusively assigned by the Constitution to the High Court, the Chief Elections Officer advised that the electoral process in every one of the ten districts, for which he himself was responsible, could not be deemed credible. And he issued new results, using the votes that he had unilaterally and arbitrarily determined were valid,” Golding stated.

He then told the Council of the motion filed in the Court of Appeal by Eslyn David, who sought to have the Court allow Lowenfield to redefine a valid vote in the context of his report. Following the Court of Appeal’s ruling, Lowenfield had assumed legal cover despite a three-day stay of the Court’s judgment, and produced another report. This time, he tried invalidating 115,844 votes.

Golding noted that the OAS had then reminded that GECOM was already in possession of a result based on the valid votes cast and determined at the recount, urging that any challenge to those would be adjudicated in the High Court in the form of an elections petition after a declaration is made.

When the PPP/C challenged the Court of Appeal’s ruling at the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), the Justices of Guyana’s apex Court made a unanimous decision to set aside the Appeal Court’s ruling, invalidate Lowenfield’s report and nudged GECOM to ensure Lowenfield submit a report using the results of the recount, as he is subject to its direction and control.

Golding told the Council how, after the CCJ’s ruling, Lowenfield received instructions on three occasions to prepare a final report on the results of the recount, and ignored them. Instead, Lowenfield attempted to revert to the declarations of the Returning Officers, by preparing a report largely based on the numbers in them. The Former Jamaica PM noted the most striking issue, that the report included the “blatantly flawed” results for Region Four.
It is noted that all of the reports produced by Lowenfield, though yielding different results each time, all sought to hand victory to the APNU+AFC coalition, despite it being evident that the PPP/C has won.

GECOM Chair, retired Justice Claudette Singh summarily set aside the declarations of the Returning Officers.
However, a new challenge soon arose when a motion was filed in the High Court by an APNU+AFC agent, Misenga Jones, seeking to have the recount invalidated and fraudulent results from the Region Four declaration form part of the results in the final declaration. As the Chief Justice dismissed the application, the coalition indicated that it will appeal the matter, and has already filed the application.

“It is distinctly possible,” Golding said, “that this matter could again traverse all the way to the CCJ.”
He closed by stating that elections are held to determine the will of the people and that once those wishes are clearly stated, they must be upheld.
“The people of Guyana have been patient for much longer than reasonably expected, while they await the results of a process that was, by all accounts, well conducted on Election Day. They must wholeheartedly be commended for this. They deserve a peaceful transition of government based on the majority vote as reflected in the recount, and in support of democracy and the rule of law.”

The OAS Permanent Council had convened the special meeting which was held yesterday, to address the Guyana situation, following a request for it by the Secretary General, Luis Almagro.
The Chair of the OAS Permanent Council and Permanent Representative of Honduras, Luis Fernando Cordero Montoya has adjourned the meeting to a later date.