The People’s Progressive Party this afternoon described the Chief Elections Officer’s decision to discard more than 115,000 votes, deeming them not to be valid and credible as criminal, adding that his move is a public attempt at elections rigging.

On the heels of a flurry of releases from various international organisations calling for a declaration of the election results, the PPP said it is of the view that the Chief Elections Officer is part of a larger conspiracy to commit election fraud.

According to the party, there is no law that gives Mr. Lowenfield the power to discard the votes on the bais of validity or credibility.

The party said Lowenfield is a statutory contractual officer of the Commission and his mandate is to only act upon the directions of the Commission, adding that he “has no power to invalidate a single vote, moreover 115,000 votes”.

The party stated that even the Commission has no power to invalidate votes since that could only be done in its view via an election petition case.

The PPP said while the Chief Election Officer appears to be defending his position based on the Court of Appeal’s recent ruling on valid votes, the Court never gave him any unilateral power to determine the valid votes cast in an election.

The PPP said it will do everything possible to ensure that the move by Lowenfield does not disenfranchise any elector and suffers the same fate like previous attempts to do such.

The party currently has a case before the Caribbean Court of Justice seeking an order for the Guyana Court of Appeal decision to be thrown out. 

The Guyana Court of Appeal in a ruling earlier this week, ruled that the words “more votes than” as stated in the Guyana Constitution means “more valid votes”.

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