With only three hearings completed, the 2020 elections fraud trial which was slated to continue today, will now be deferred until September as Senior Magistrate Leron Daly, who is presiding over the matter, has been placed on 30 days of sick leave.
This was revealed on Tuesday. As a matter of fact, the case had first been scheduled to resume on Monday, August 5, after being adjourned last week. That was when reports of Magistrate Daly’s illness first emerged, prompting the matter to be adjourned until today.
When contacted, Special Prosecutor and King’s Counsel Darshan Ramdhani, related that he found out about the Magistrate’s sick leave on Tuesday afternoon. He explained that he has already informed the prosecution’s witnesses, who were expected to continue their testimony today.
“We have notified our witnesses, who were scheduled to appear (today), not to attend. We have started the trial; we have put witnesses in the box and our witnesses are ready. And we’re ready to proceed with the matter,” Ramdhani said.
So far, Local Government and Regional Development Minister Sonia Parag has testified.
In her testimony, Parag recalled acts of misconduct she witnessed from GECOM staff during the 2020 General and Regional Elections. Her testimony included witnessing efforts by GECOM staff to alter the results by deducting People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) votes and adding votes to the then-ruling A Partnership for National Unity/Alliance For Change (APNU/AFC).
She had also testified that despite a Court Order from acting Chief Justice Roxane George which compelled GECOM to use only the Statements of Poll (SOPs) to tabulate the numbers for the Region Four (Demerara/Mahaica) votes, Returning Officer Clairmont Mingo, one of those now on trial, continued to conduct the tabulation using a projector and bedsheet.
The prosecution had complained that witnesses are not being allowed to freely testify as they should. At the last hearing, Magistrate Daly acknowledged that not allowing certain testimony was indeed an error. As such, she gave permission for the reopening of the examination of the witness, Minister Parag. The trial is set to last until September 13.
Nine persons are before the court in relation to electoral fraud. They are former Returning Officer for Region Four, Clairmont Mingo; former Chief Elections Officer (CEO) Keith Lowenfield; his former Deputy, Roxanne Myers; former People’s National Congress/ Reform (PNCR) Chairperson Volda Lawrence; PNCR activist Carol Smith-Joseph; and GECOM employees Sheffern February, Enrique Livan, Michelle Miller and Denise Babb-Cummings.
They are facing 28 charges relating to electoral fraud. Among the offences these defendants are accused of committing are: misconduct while holding public office; presenting falsified documentation; and planning to manipulate Guyana’s voters by presenting an inaccurate vote total.
These charges stem from attempts to rig the 2020 General and Regional Elections in favour of the then-ruling APNU/AFC. The election report of former CEO Lowenfield claimed that the APNU/AFC coalition garnered 171,825 votes, while the PPP/C gained 166,343 votes.
How he arrived at those figures is still unknown, since the certified results from the recount exercise supervised by GECOM and a high-level team from the Caribbean Community (Caricom) pellucidly showed that the PPP/C won with 233,336 votes, while the coalition garnered 217,920.
Following the recount, PPP’s Irfaan Ali was declared President of Guyana on August 2, 2020 – some five months after the March 2, 2020 General and Regional Elections.
