Notice of intended elections petition filed with High Court
An application for leave to file an elections petition, intended to question the March 02 general and regional elections, has been filed with the High Court.
The application was made on Thursday, August 27 by Attorney-at-law Roysdale Forde on behalf of the applicants Claudette Thorne and Heston Bostwick, both residents of Georgetown.
The filing attorneys are Forde, along with Trinidad Senior Counsel John Jeremie, Raphael Trotman (who is also Chairman of the opposition party AFC), and Olayne Joseph.
General Secretary of the Coalition APNU Joseph Harmon had stated publicly that the actual petition will be filed on Monday, August 31, 2020. The Court has not yet assigned a date and time.
Thorne, of 20 Independence Boulevard and Bostwick, of 63 Barr Street, Kitty, are seeking to contend that “the elections were unlawfully conducted and/or the results of the elections (if lawfully conducted) were affected or might have been affected by unlawful acts or omissions.”
They plan to produce a number of documents in court but the actual Statements of Poll which show the vote count in each of the 2, 339 polling stations were not listed among those documents they will present.
If they succeed in their case, the petitioners are seeking orders from the court to declare that elections were so badly held that the results from it cannot be deemed to be the will of the people. At the same time, they want the Court to throw out the elections and have David Granger declared as President under those very elections they claim were conducted against the electoral laws and constitution of the country.
The petitioners want the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) to use the vote count from the Ten Returning Officers to declare the results of the elections. That would include the District Four vote Count which has been condemned as fraudulent.
The petitioners contend that the Chief Elections Officer was not required to use the data from the national vote recount to produce his elections report from which the results were declared.
Alternatively, the petitioners want the Court to order fresh elections in 90 days after its ruling on the case.
The respondents named are Chief Elections Officer Keith Lowenfield, representative of APNU+AFC David Granger, representative of the Federal United Party Horatio Edmonson, representative of the PPP Bharrat Jagdeo, representative of the Liberty and Justice Party John Flores, representative of the New Movement Asha Kissoon, Representative of the United Republican Party Vishnu Bandhu, representative of Change Guyana Abedin Ali, representative of the Peoples Republican Party Patrick Bourne, representative of A New and United Guyana Jonathan Bourne, representative of The Citizenship Initiative Shazaam Aly and representative of Organisation for Victory of the People Gerald Perreira.
The attorneys representing the petitioners L-R: Trinidad Senior Counsel John Jeremie, Olayne Joseph, Raphael Trotman and Senior Counsel Roysdale Forde
