Georgetown: Guyana’s Court of Appeal will reconvene on Saturday at 11:00hrs to deliberate on the hearing of a Notice of Motion filed in the Court of Appeal by the APNU/AFC supporter, Eslyn David.
The case commenced Friday before Justices Dawn Gregory Barnes, Rishi Persaud and Brassington Reynolds.
On Saturday, each lawyer will be given 30 minutes for their oral submissions. However, they all have by the end of Friday to file their affidavits in response.
The legal action was filed by Attorney Mayo Robertson on behalf of David of Pike Street, North Sophia, Georgetown.
It named Chief Elections Officer Keith Lowenfield, GECOM Chair (retired) Justice Claudette Singh, the Guyana Elections Commission, and Attorney General of Guyana Basil Williams as respondents.
David, an APNU/AFC supporter is asking for a series of orders to stop GECOM from moving ahead with the declaration of the results from the March 2 elections.
Lowenfield was expected to submit his final elections report to GECOM on Thursday, but failed to do so after he was served with a mere legal notice of the intent.
This, coupled with the fact that the seven-member Commission did not have the quorum to convene its meeting due to the absence of two of the three APNU/AFC nominated commissioners, forced the GECOM Chair to postpone the much- anticipated meeting that would have paved the way for a final declaration and eventual swearing in of PPP/C’s Dr Irfaan Ali as the new President of Guyana.
On Thursday, PPP/C’s General Secretary Bharrat Jagdeo contended that the Notice of Motion filed in the Court of Appeal by the APNU/AFC supporter is a “disguised” elections petition.
The PPP/C garnered a total of 233,336 votes while the APNU/AFC secured 217,920 votes.
Meanwhile, the Electoral Observer Mission of the European Union (EU EOM) on Wednesday said that it trusts that GECOM will expeditiously conclude the electoral process using the data from the National Recount.
The Mission statement came after welcoming the report of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Recount Scrutineer team, which found that the March 2 polls were credible, and that the results of the recount are “completely acceptable”.
The EU team said that CARICOM’s report reflects the findings it had made in its own final report on the elections; that voting and counting were well managed “all over the country, as was the tabulation of the results in nine of Guyana’s ten regions.”
Like the CARICOM team, the EU team highlighted the Region Four tabulation, described by CARICOM as “disastrous”. The EU EOM said that the Region Four tabulation had “seriously compromised” the integrity of the electoral process.
Region Four Returning Officer, Clairmont Mingo had twice produced fraudulent declarations. But the watchful eyes of a series of political parties and electoral observers had caused the fraud to be unearthed on both occasions, and the National Recount has corrected the numbers.
Additionally, Sir Shridath Ramphal has reminded President Granger about how he emphatically regarded CARICOM as “the most legitimate interlocutor on the Guyana situation”, following the pronouncement of its Recount Scrutineer Team that Guyana’s elections were credible.
“As long ago as 2001, CARICOM Heads of Government (including Guyana’s) have stressed that the
Region had a long-standing tradition of respect for the will of the people expressed through free and fair elections on a regular basis and pledged to work together to maintain and strengthen the institution and processes essential to democratic Government,” Sir Ramphal said.
The CARICOM report had stated that the elections were credible, and that the results of the recount are “completely acceptable”. But Government nominated Commissioner Vincent Alexander argued against the findings of the CARICOM team.
Sir Ramphal also reminded that he had pleaded with Guyana not to “descend into the pit of lawlessness”; adding that the outcome of Guyana’s March 2 polls, “must be an example – not only in Guyana but regionally and worldwide – of the strength of law and democracy.”
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