PNM’s Mar­vin Gon­za­les has re­tained the Arou­ca/Lopinot seat fol­low­ing a full re­count of bal­lots cast in the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion, the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) con­firmed on Sat­ur­day.

The re­count, trig­gered by a re­quest from the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), was car­ried out un­der Rule 101 of the Elec­tion Rules and in­clud­ed a com­pre­hen­sive poll card ver­i­fi­ca­tion. In the fi­nal cer­ti­fied count, Gon­za­les se­cured 7,958 votes, hold­ing off the UNC’s Na­tal­ie Chai­tan-Ma­haraj, who re­ceived 7,699. The Pro­gres­sive Fed­er­a­tion (PF) earned 537 votes, while the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) re­ceived 146. A to­tal of 41 bal­lots were re­ject­ed.

De­spite the nar­row loss, Chai­tan-Ma­haraj has been sworn in as Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of the Peo­ple, So­cial De­vel­op­ment and Fam­i­ly Ser­vices un­der the new UNC-led ad­min­is­tra­tion.