Shuman’s party requests removal of Lowenfield

The Liberty and Justice Party (LJP) has written to the Chair of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Justice (Ret’d), Claudette Singh, requesting the immediate dismissal of Chief Elections Officer (CEO), Keith Lowenfield. The letter cited 12 occasions where the CEO conducted himself in a manner that demonstrated no respect for the will of the electorate. In the letter penned by Presidential Candidate and leader of the party, Lennox Shuman, he stated “Over the last four (4) months, Mr. Lowenfield has conducted himself in a manner that does not command the confidence of the public and continues to demonstrate no degree of respect for the electorate, the Guyanese people nor the structures and institutions that were meant to protect and safeguard the will of the people”.

“That the CEO”, they stated, “clearly demonstrates a bias, we are resolute in our view that the CEO, Mr. Keith Lowenfield, has completely and absolutely lost the confidence of the Guyanese electorate, and we believe the above as laid out provide undisputable grounds for Mr. Lowenfield’s immediate removal/termination from his post as CEO and for his expeditious replacement with a candidate more amicable to the terms and operations of law abiding statutory officers in democratic institutions.”

Making his argument, Shuman listed the various acts of the CEO that “contributed

to the complete and absolute loss of confidence in him”. The party accused Lowenfield of “Gross negligence with regards to the safeguarding of elections documents”; the very documents used as the basis of fraud allegations by the incumbent Coalition.

During the National Recount, the Coalition had demanded that GECOM discard 29 ballot boxes, threatening more than 7,000 votes cast by electors from the East Coast of Demerara. Critical statutory documents such as the counterfoils, Official List of Electors (OLE), poll books, folios, spoilt ballots, damaged ballots, and proxies were found to be missing upon examination of the boxes during the recount. (Kaieteur News)