GECOM must ignore parts of Lowenfield’s report where he acted outside lawful authority- Datadin

PPP/C-aligned lawyer, Sanjeev Datadin’s legal opinion is that the Chief Elections Officer (CEO) of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Keith Lowenfield provided superfluous information in his report to the Chair, Justice Claudette Singh. That report has to be considered by the Commission before a declaration can be made regarding the results of the March 2, elections.
Datadin believes that by law, the Commission is bound to ignore aspects of Lowenfield’s report that call into question the credibility of the elections.
Giving reason for his position, Datadin stated that a public officer is only empowered to do that which the statute that creates him allows him to do. He said that the Chief Elections Officer’s (CEO) task was to prepare a report based on the Statements of Recount (SoR) of the ten regions.
Datadin added that Lowenfield was supposed to name the victorious party and the allocations of seats in the National Assembly in accordance with the law.
“What he has done by saying that the election results are not credible goes beyond his legal authority. It should, therefore, be ignored by the Commission as that part of his report has no legal authority,” said Datadin.
The lawyer stated that even if the recount order appears to give the Commission the right to consider the credibility of the results, that order does not give any authority to Lowenfield because the Commission cannot give Lowenfield a legal power that he does not have otherwise.
Datadin said that the issues raised by Lowenfield regarding voter impersonation can only be addressed in a court of law through an election petition.
Further, Datadin said that it is even worse that Lowenfield made his pronouncements without conducting any investigation and “without having any evidence.”
Datadin told Guyana Standard, “It is regrettable that again, an employee of GECOM is taking bold and startlingly unlawful means to deny the will of the Guyanese people. This is nothing more than a continuation of the unlawful activities of (Region 4 Returning Officer) Mingo.”
Lowenfield handed his report to the Chair earlier today.
Speaking about the results for Region 1, Lowenfield said, “Finally, the summation of the anomalies and instances of voter impersonation identified in District One clearly does not appear to satisfy the criteria of impartiality, fairness and compliance with the provisions of the constitution and the ROPA Cap 1:03. Consequently, on the basis of the votes counted and the information furnished from the recount, it cannot be ascertained that the results from District One, Barima/Waini meet the standard of fair and credible elections.
This conclusion was replicated throughout the report regarding all regions.