Victoria woman denies knowing name used to file charges against GECOM Chair, but now agrees

Onita Walcott, one of the individuals whose name appeared on court documents as filing private criminal charges against the Chairperson of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Justice (rt’d) Claudette Singh has said she did not know her name was being used but has now agreed.

According to Court documents, Walcott, a member of the APNU+AFC Coalition, resides at Lot 25 Section ‘B’ Victoria Village, East Coast Demerara (ECD).

On Thursday, a voice note began circulating in which Walcott expressed shock that her name appeared in the news as being one of the persons to file private criminal charges against the GECOM Chair.

The News Room visited Victoria on Thursday and a very close relative of Walcott confirmed that she did not give anyone consent to use her name. The relative further disclosed that the 39-year-old woman was on her way to Georgetown to speak with party officials.

“Onita ain’t got no money to take nobody to court. She supports the party but she [didn’t] know her name was on the court document,” the relative stated.

One hour after the News Room spoke with the relative, Walcott appeared in a live video on the Facebook page of APNU member James Bond where she said she did indeed tell her boss, “I know nothing about it.”

But she has since retracted her previous statement.

Walcott stated: “Nobody can’t lead me to do nothing but they make it seem like someone put a gun to me head ‘yuh got to do this thing.’ No, no one did but people keep asking me [and I say] no, I know nothing about it.”

Walcott along with Lorraine Joseph of Melanie Damishana, ECD and Keith Ondaan of Central Amelia’s Ward, Linden are named in Court documents as having filed three private charges against the Chairperson on GECOM for misconduct in public office.

They are represented by Attorney Maxwell Edwards.

According to the document, the applicants are alleging that the GECOM Chair between the 14^th March 2020, 13^th June 2020 and 23^rd of June acted recklessly and unlawfully when she refused to accept the Chief Elections Officer’s report on the March 2 elections.

On March 14, the CEO presented his elections report containing fraudulent votes inflated by the Returning Officer of Region Four Clairmont Mingo to show a win for the APNU+AFC Coalition.

On June 13, the CEO submitted a report to GECOM showing a larger margin for the incumbent APNU+AFC than the victory handed to them by Mingo.

In his report, Lowenfield reduced the number of valid votes recounted from 460,352 to 160,260 – which would effectively mean that 275,092 or 60% of the electorate would be disenfranchised.

Of the 185,260 votes which the CEO considers valid, 125,010 or 67% is awarded to the APNU+AFC and 56,627 or 30.5% to the PPP. The remaining votes were awarded to the smaller parties.

On June 23, he again presented a new report to GECOM where he dumped 155,000 votes which he said are invalid, to give the incumbent a victory.

The Court of Appeal in a ruling Thursday declared that no results other than that from the recount are valid and the Chief Elections Officer must do as he is told by the GECOM chair.

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