The Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion will to­day con­duct the check of Ari­ma North­east bal­lots which have been ques­tioned by the PNM. It comes as the Ari­ma may­or des­ig­nate Bal­li­ram Ma­haraj and al­der­men are ex­pect­ed to be sworn in to­mor­row.

The PNM and UNC had tied in Ari­ma North­east in the Au­gust 14 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions. The UNC then re­quest­ed a re­count of that dis­trict. When it was com­plet­ed, UNC’s Jairz­in­ho Rigs­by re­ceived 624 votes and PNM’s Kim Gar­cia, 623. The PEP’s Curt Clement got 81.

The seat was de­clared in favour of the UNC, but the PNM sub­se­quent­ly called for the EBC to check cer­tain bal­lots that the PNM had ques­tioned. The EBC will do the check at 10 am to­day at the Mal­abar Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre.

Fol­low­ing the ex­pect­ed con­clu­sion of that is­sue, the new may­or des­ig­nate for Ari­ma, busi­ness­man Ma­haraj, will be sworn in at 10 am to­mor­row at the Mal­abar Phase Four Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre. Al­so be­ing sworn in are Ari­ma al­der­men Derek King and Irene Med­i­na.

The UNC is ex­pect­ed to have one al­der­man in the Ari­ma Coun­cil. How­ev­er, that was be­ing fi­nalised yes­ter­day evening af­ter some UNC Ari­ma mem­bers ex­pressed con­cern to the par­ty lead­er­ship about a pro­posed al­der­man.

The UNC mem­bers, who spoke with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day but did not wish to be iden­ti­fied, said they had re­quest­ed well-known UNC stal­wart in the area Flo­ra Singh, but the per­son they were be­ing of­fered as al­der­man was a for­mer Ari­ma coun­cil­lor, who they did not sup­port.

They said they were hop­ing to get the is­sue of al­der­man set­tled favourably since the UNC’s unit in Ari­ma had al­ready ex­pe­ri­enced oth­er al­leged is­sues dur­ing the lo­cal gov­ern­ment cam­paign.

“And that sit­u­a­tion took a toll on our elec­tion work as we on­ly won Ari­ma North­east where the PNM’s now fight­ing to ‘check’ bal­lots. But we re­main hope­ful, we’ll get the right al­der­man. If not, Ari­ma’s UNC will cer­tain­ly call on the UNC’s lead­er­ship to ac­count on this is­sue,” mem­bers said.

Mean­while, UNC ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cials told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day the mat­ter of the Ari­ma al­der­man “was be­ing dealt with”.