Casan­dra Thomp­son�Forbes

The To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tion re­sults re­main the same af­ter the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots leader Wat­son Duke lost a re­count in the close­ly con­test­ed Good­wood/Belle Gar­den elec­toral dis­trict yes­ter­day.

The par­ty won two of the 12 avail­able seats in Mon­day's elec­tion, but felt it had a chance via a re­count af­ter Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment can­di­date Hay­den Spencer (953) on­ly beat the PDP's Dr Faith Yis­rael (948) by five votes.

Speak­ing to the me­dia dur­ing a press con­fer­ence at the PSA's of­fice in Scar­bor­ough be­fore the count yes­ter­day, Duke said the re­sults were too close for com­fort and it was a cause for con­cern.

"The elec­toral dis­trict of Belle Gar­den/Good­wood and a lit­tle piece of Mt St George came in­to ques­tion last night (Mon­day) and I would say in­to con­tro­ver­sy last night, when our can­di­date for the area, Dr Faith B Yis­rael, was lead­ing the count and the first re­count, she was ahead of him by two, and then they asked for an­oth­er re­count, then he over­took her," he said

Duke said his par­ty was look­ing for the "smok­ing gun" be­cause he be­lieved some­thing sin­is­ter was afoot.

He said he re­ceived cer­tain in­for­ma­tion, caus­ing his par­ty to make spe­cif­ic in­quiries from the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion.

"We filed with the EBC the ap­pro­pri­ate doc­u­men­ta­tion re­quest­ing a re­count of all the polling sta­tions, in­clu­sive of all polling cards is­sued on that day.

"We are hop­ing when all is said and done, that we tri­umph and this would work out to the ben­e­fit of the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pro­gres­sive Pa­tri­ots," he said.

Like To­ba­go For­wards leader Christlyn Moore, Duke al­leged that in­di­vid­u­als were brought from Trinidad by the PNM to vote in the THA elec­tions to in­flu­ence the out­come.

"We al­so learned of the fact that many per­sons who have vot­ed in the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions were spon­sored by the PNM to come across and vote PNM in this THA elec­tions, so we are al­so ask­ing that all the ad­di­tion­al names that were reg­is­tered to vote with­in the in­cu­ba­tion pe­ri­od, that they be made avail­able to us dur­ing the re­count and that those polling cards be checked against those ad­di­tion­al names.

"We are look­ing for the smok­ing gun and wher­ev­er there is smoke, there must be some fire," he said.

The re­count start­ed at 3pm and last­ed for more than four hours un­der the watch­ful eyes of po­lice of­fi­cers. Of­fi­cials from both par­ties wit­nessed the process. On com­ple­tion of the process, the re­sults re­mained the same al­though there were five re­ject­ed bal­lots which could have gone in favour of the PDP.

How­ev­er, both sides agreed with the re­sults and deemed it fair and free.

Speak­ing to the me­dia af­ter the re­count, Yis­rael said she need­ed to go through the process to put her con­stituents at ease.

"Many mem­bers of my con­stituen­cy thought that they may have been cheat­ed, so I need­ed to en­sure that I did every­thing in my pow­er to prove the re­sults cor­rect, so that they can feel as if the re­sult is re­al­ly the cor­rect re­sult," she said.

Yis­rael said her par­ty did not see the re­sult as a loss, but as mo­ti­va­tion to con­tin­ue rep­re­sent­ing the peo­ple of To­ba­go.

"The PDP is an or­gan­i­sa­tion that is bare­ly a year old and we have fought and have suc­ceed­ed against an or­gan­i­sa­tion that is six­ty years old, that has the na­tion's purse strings, has the Prime Min­is­ter, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and all of the big wigs, fight­ing against us and for us to come out hav­ing won two seats and com­ing with­in five votes of a third seat is amaz­ing.

"In my mind, this is such a vic­to­ry that the PNM needs to be re­al­ly con­cerned."

She added, "We have vowed we will not stop, we have vowed that we will not give up, as we say no re­treat, no sur­ren­der, this is just the be­gin­ning. We will con­tin­ue rep­re­sent­ing, we will con­tin­ue en­sur­ing that To­ba­go has a voice out­side of the PNM."

The new THA ex­ec­u­tive is ex­pect­ed to be sworn in to­mor­row at the As­sem­bly Leg­is­la­ture at Jern­ing­ham Street, Scar­bor­ough.