THE 2004/05 president of the Jamaica Teachers' Association (JTA) will be identified next Tuesday following the counting of ballots at the association's Church Street headquarters in downtown Kingston.
Dorothy Raymond, the JTA's senior secretary for administration and communication, told The Gleaner on Monday that although the official proclamation of the new president will be made during the JTA's annual conference in August, its Central Executive could decide to make public the name of the prospective president before that time.
Meanwhile, she said the presidential election, which ran from June 21-25, was uneventful. "It went well. We had no complaints from the schools."
According to Mrs. Raymond, the ballots from the respective schools were currently being collected by returning officers to be taken to the JTA for next week's counting.
This year, five candidates contested the JTA presidential elections the highest number in the organisation's 40-year history. Several members of the organisation had suggested that voter turnout for this year's election would be high given that the 2005/06 president would be responsible for leading the salary negotiations with the Govern-ment for the 2006/08 contract period.
The contenders are Ruel Reid from St. Elizabeth; David Brown and Cecelia Grant-Francis from Clarendon; Hopeton Henry from St. Thomas; and Patricia Brown from Kingston and St. Andrew.
