The country’s Chief Elections Officer, Keith Lowenfield, on Tuesday presented a report of what he considers valid votes and in so doing dumped over 115,000 votes and gave the APNU+AFC enough Parliamentary seats to form a government; the report is expected to be rejected by Justice Claudette Singh, Chair of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM).
Lowenfield presented his report to Justice Singh one day after the Court of Appeal ruled that valid votes must be used in determining the winner of the elections. But the Court order has been stayed for three days and is not yet in effect. Last Thursday, at just the signal of court action, Lowenfield withheld his report, but now, even though the order of the Court of Appeal has been stayed and an appeal filed with the Caribbean Court of Justice, Lowenfield has handed in his report.
In the initial report which he submitted to GECOM, Lowenfield gave as “valid” the votes from the national recount, but now he submitted a report which is completely different.
And it is unclear how Lowenfield came up with his figures, which now gives APNU+AFC 33 seats in the National Assembly, the PPP 31 seats and the three parties which joined their lists, one seat.
Figures from the recount would give PPP 33 seats to form the government. APNU+AFC would get 31 seats and the three parties – ANUG, LJP and TNM – would get one seat to complete the 65-seat National Assembly.
In his first report, based on official figures from the recount, Lowenfield certified that there were 460, 352 valid votes. Today, he reduced that figure to 344, 508. That’s a difference of 115, 844.
Figures from the recount show APNU+AFC received 217, 920 votes, but in his report today, Lowenfield gave them 171, 825, a reduction of 46, 095.
Figures from the recount show that the PPP won the elections with 233, 336 votes, but Lowenfield reduced their figure to 166, 343. That’s a difference of 66, 993.
Figures from the recount show that together ANUG, LJP and TCM received 5, 214 votes. But Lowenfield reduced their combined votes to 3, 348, a difference of 1, 866.
