The Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) never invalidated any aspect of the recount as is being peddled by those in the APNU/AFC Coalition and the Chief Elections Officer Keith Lowenfield.
This is according to People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Executive and former Chief Whip, Gail Teixeira who insisted, during a recent panel discussion, that it is CEO Lowenfield who has gone against the Constitution, the CCJ and the High Court of Guyana in his actions.
Teixeira, a PPP/C Candidate for the March 2, polls, noted that “the CCJ never, ever, discounted, nullified or did anything to harm the recount. What they clearly did is nullify what the Court of Appeal did and what Lowenfield did. That’s the two basic things they did.”
“The process that was designated by Order 60 was to ensure final, credible, election results. So anyone fooling people that the CCJ nullified the recount is actually guilty. The CCJ never nullified the recount results. In fact, they upheld the process that led to the recount,” she explained.
“And they went to great pains, in the actual ruling, to point out the whole issue of a valid vote and how it is counted,” she added.
Justice Singh had written to Lowenfield and instructed him to prepare a final report based on the recount.
Instead, Lowenfield engaged in a back and forth with Justice Singh that culminated in him reverting to using results that included the discredited declaration of Region Four Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo.
In fact, it was Mingo’s non-transparent tabulation and declaration that pushed PPP/C and APNU/AFC to agree to a recount in the first place.
The national recount has shown that the PPP/C won the elections with 233,336 votes while the APNU/AFC coalition garnered 217,920.
Among other decisions, the CCJ ruled on Wednesday that the Chief Elections Officer must produce a final elections report as ordered by the GECOM Chair.
The CCJ also ruled that Lowenfield’s report which arbitrarily disenfranchised voters was invalid and that the concerns raised by the APNU/AFC coalition must be addressed in an elections petition.
According to Teixieira, Lowenfield deserves to be fired and “nothing can redeem him,” as this stage due to his blatant illegal, partisan actions he has shown in favour of the incumbent Coalition.
Teixeira said Lowenfield’s conduct has been of someone seemingly without a conscience.
She said that Lowenfield could very well be guilty of high crimes and misdemeanours, a term used to denote crimes which are committed by persons in positions of authority and involved in politics.
