By Balford Henry, News EditorTHREE OF six magisterial recounts which started this week, following the Electoral Office of Jamaica's (EOJ) final count of the October 16 general election, have been completed showing little changes in the results.
Those completed up to yesterday were in St. Andrew South Eastern, St. Elizabeth South Eastern, and St. Mary South Eastern, all of which were retained by the ruling People's National Party.
The recount in Manchester Central, which was also won by the PNP on the final count, is expected to end today, while those in St. Ann North Western and St. Elizabeth South Western, which began yesterday, are expected to last for another few days. (The final count was the official count of the ballots conducted by the EOJ last week. Magisterial recounts are requested by candidates who charge that electoral laws were violated on election day, and are conducted by Resident Magistrates).
There is still controversy over the closest result, that in St. Elizabeth South Eastern. Edmund Bartlett, a Deputy Leader of the JLP, said last night that the party would take the issue to the Supreme Court.
At the end of the magisterial recount, the PNP's Lenworth Blake was declared the winner by 77 votes. Mr. Blake polled 7,640 votes to the JLP's Franklyn Witter's 7,563 votes. There were 308 ballots which had been rejected by Returning Officer Basil Bennett in the final count. Most were accepted by the RM in the magisterial recount. Out of that figure, Mr. Blake received 130, while Mr. Witter received 135 reducing the PNP's margin by five votes.
The Resident Magistrate Marlene Malahoo-Forte told the court on Wednesday afternoon that genuine ballots had been rejected on either side. She said she could see no reason why they were rejected.
An application was made by lawyers representing Mr. Witter for the RM to rule against polling station No. 87, located at the Women's Crisis Centre in Junction. They alleged that 190 ballots were put in the box by the Returning Officer on behalf of Election Day workers and the security forces without a list of names to support them.
The lawyers said there was no poll book and no unused ballots for the electoral workers. The poll book at the polling station stated that 113 people voted, while 190 votes were counted, overwhelmingly for Mr. Blake. But, yesterday Mrs. Malahoo-Forte said that it was not in her power to rule against those ballots.
Mr. Witter's leading attorney, Cecil July, commented that "we have not seen the end of this counting." He claimed that there was a hole in the system for people to commit fraud.
"Our contention about the 190 votes is we don't know if they were in fact electoral representatives who actually polled them. Also, we don't know how many Election Day workers voted. We don't know if it was 90 and they had 100 unused ballots, which they chose not to waste and somebody marked those for the PNP, because there was no list to verify where these 190 ballots came from," he remarked.
Head of Mr. Blake's legal team, Walter Scott, said he was pleased with how the proceedings went. He said that the magistrate had conducted herself properly and that the lawyers on both sides had been co-operative.
The magisterial recount for St. Ann North Western, which should have started on Wednesday, finally got going yesterday in the St. Ann's Bay Resident Magistrate's Court with Resident Magistrate Winsome Henry conducting it. When it ended, at 4:40 p.m., only 24 of the 119 boxes were counted and the JLP's Verna Parchment was still leading Arnold Bertram of the PNP by 167 votes. The results of the final count gave Miss Parchment 7,534 votes to 7,367 for Bertram. The preliminary count had given the seat to Mr. Bertram by 26 votes.
Miss Parchment's legal team is headed by attorney-at-law Harold Brady, while attorney Oswest Senior-Smith leads Mr. Bertram's team. Counting will resume today at 9:30 a.m.
Resident Magistrate Henry will inform the lawyers today whether she will be allowing a continuation of the counting tomorrow. Both JLP and PNP lawyers said they were willing to make themselves available on Saturday.
In St. Andrew South Eastern, Maxine Henry-Wilson, the new Minister of Education, Youth and Culture, held onto the seat scoring 4,963 votes to the Jamaica Labour Party's Phillip Henriques' 4,095. Mrs. Henry-Wilson picked up four votes over her final count figure of 4,959 (53.2%), while Mr. Henriques dropped five from his final count figure of 4,100 (44%).
The magisterial recount in St. Mary South Eastern was concluded on Wednesday, after two days of counting. Final figures gave the PNP's Harry Douglas 6,179 votes and Tarn Peralto of the JLP 5,853. At the preliminary count on October 16, the PNP had 6,181 votes and the JLP, 5,837 votes. Wednesday's recount gave the JLP 16 additional votes, while the PNP lost 2. There were several spoilt and rejected ballots.
The recount was conducted at the Port Maria Courthouse by Senior Resident Magistrate Sarah Thompson-James. Glen Cruickshank, attorney-at-law, represented the PNP, while attorneys-at-law Abe Dabdoub and Arthur Williams, Jr., represented the JLP.
In Manchester Central, John Junor, Minister of Health, scoring 8,307 (52.9%) to the JLP's Norman Horne's 7,185 (45.7%) in the final count. The magisterial recount, which is taking place at the Mandeville RM Court, should end today.
Returning Officer Caswell Burton told The Gleaner yesterday that with 101 of 119 boxes counted, Mr. Junor had maintained a lead of more than 700 votes over his rival and that there were no real changes in terms of the final count, as both candidates had picked up and lost some votes.
He said the result of the magisterial recount should be available by 2 p.m. today.
Another magisterial recount for St. Elizabeth South Western involving Minister of Water and Housing, Donald Buchanan, and the JLP's Derrick Sangster is now in progress at the Black River courthouse.
Also contributing to this story were Devon Evans in St. Ann's Bay, Rayon Dyer and Annalee Bernard in Black River.
