Former Attorney General and Legal Affairs Minister under the People’s Progressive Party/Civic Administration, Anil Nandlall, has rubbished the proposal by the Chief Elections Officer (CEO), Keith Lowenfield to have a national recount be done in 156 days.
In relation to the proposal for an elections audit by Government-aligned Commissioner of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Vincent Alexander, Nandlall said this must be resisted since it is not catered for in law and would only seek to further delay the declaration of the March 2 elections while keeping the Administration in office for another six months.
According to Nandlall, the Government Commissioner through his proposal for an elections audit, “in essence, wants the decision to do a recount altered to do an audit, instead. This must be fiercely resisted.”
He was adamant, “no one ever called for an audit and no decision was ever made to do an audit. In any event, the law does not provide for an audit to be done. It is unnecessary and will only delay the process further”.
Speaking to Lowenfield’s involvement in the delay tactics, Nandlall noted that when he was tasked with the responsibility of preparing a document reflecting the modus operandi of the impending recount, he “produces a document which is completely consistent with the political agenda of the Congress Place cabal: a proposal that would keep the cabal in Government for another six months while incorporating Alexander’s scheme for an audit”.
Nandlall has since called the move an attempt at entrapment and has posited, “the document is replete with materials and bases to create the platform for a legal challenge to be launched against the recount when it is convenient to the political masterminds to do so”.
He suggests, “It is for this reason that the PPP Commissioners put forward separate proposals.”
According to Nandlall, “in so doing, we followed the law as closely as possible, very wary of a possible litigious entrapment. A recount is a legal process and cannot be the subject of political compromise … If we dare deviate from the law, no doubt they would rush to court to knock it down.”
The former Attorney General in weighing in on the current electoral impasse called for the recount by the Commission to begin as early as this week.
