Five Magisterial recounts applications were filed following the General Election that took place on Thursday, September 3; in North West St. Catherine, Westmoreland Eastern, Manchester Central, Clarendon North West, and St. Ann South East.
Following the recount, it remains in the hands of the Pople’s National Party (PNP). The preliminary count of the votes in Northwest St. Catherine gave the PNP‘s Hugh Graham the win over the Jamaica Labour Party‘s (JLP) Newton Amos.
In Manchester Central, the JLP’s Rhoda May Crawford retains the seat, this is after the independent candidate Rohan Chung filed for a recount. Despite Crawford losing 53 votes, she maintains a margin of over a thousand votes defeating the PNP’s incumbent Peter Bunting.
Chung had 49 votes before the recount, which took three days, in the end he lost one ballot.
The court has ordered him to pay over $2 million dollars in legal fees to Crawford’s attorneys for failing in his bid.
Also, the recount for the St. Ann South East constituency started on Monday and is to continue.
That preliminary count saw the incumbent PNP member of parliament Lisa Hanna defeating the JLP’s Delroy Grantson by a slim margin. In Clarendon North West the recount is slated to start on Tuesday at the Chapelton court house.
The preliminary count saw the PNP’s incumbent Richard Azan losing to the JLP’s Phillip Henriques. And over in Westmoreland Eastern, the magisterial recount will continue into Tuesday.
At the end of Monday, 107 boxes were recounted, out of 117. From the Westmoreland Eastern Constituency, the Jamaica Labour Party’s Daniel Lawrence has been declared the winner of the seat after the conclusion of the magisterial recount.
He polled 4,862 votes to the PNP’s Luther Buchanan who received 4,851. Buchanan was earlier declared the winner after a tie was broken. This means the JLP has restored its majority of 49 seats to the PNP’s 14.
