The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM)yes­ter­day won Ari­ma North­east by one vote, over­turn­ing last week’s re­count re­sult which gave it to the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC)—and the Op­po­si­tion is now ex­am­in­ing the sit­u­a­tion to de­ter­mine if it will legal­ly chal­lenge the re­sult.

The de­vel­op­ment arose fol­low­ing a check by the Elec­tion and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion’s (EBC) As­sis­tant Chief Elec­tion Of­fi­cer, Pamela Ogiste, on cer­tain bal­lots.

The check was re­quest­ed by the PNM last Fri­day, af­ter last Thurs­day’s re­count re­sult­ed in the seat be­ing de­clared for the UNC.

But af­ter re­count con­clud­ed with two more votes in the PNM’s favour, can­di­date Kim Gar­cia, who re­ceived a to­tal of 625 votes, will be sworn in as a coun­cil­lor this morn­ing in the cor­po­ra­tion, where all sev­en coun­cil­lors are PNM.

In the sec­ond EBC check, UNC can­di­date Jairz­in­ho Rigs­by re­ceived 624 votes and PEP’s Curt Clement re­mained at 81 votes.

Ari­ma North­east had been in con­tention since the Au­gust 14 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions, when the PNM’s Gar­cia and UNC’s Rigs­by tied with 623 votes each.

The UNC had re­quest­ed a re­count in Ari­ma North­east among 12 oth­er ar­eas. When the re­count was com­plet­ed last Thurs­day, the EBC an­nounced that Rigs­by had re­ceived one more vote—to­talling 624 votes, PNM’s Gar­cia re­ceived 623 and PEP’s Clement got 81.

The seat was then de­clared in favour of the UNC. How­ev­er, the PNM sub­se­quent­ly called on the EBC to check cer­tain bal­lots which the par­ty had ques­tioned.

PNM of­fi­cials had said the sit­u­a­tion in­volved two bal­lots which they felt clear­ly in­di­cat­ed the vote was for the PNM.

Yes­ter­day’s check of the fi­nal re­sult was done in ac­cor­dance with Elec­tion Rule 106(1).

The EBC said at the end of the sec­ond check of the fi­nal re­sult of the poll, Gar­cia had two ad­di­tion­al votes.

The EBC stat­ed, “This re­sult over­turns the out­come of the re­count, which was con­duct­ed dur­ing the pe­ri­od Au­gust 16th-17th, 2023 and saw the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ can­di­date Jairz­in­ho Rigs­by be­ing de­clared the win­ner.”

Ari­ma PN­Mites, hap­py at the out­come, not­ed all sev­en seats in the Ari­ma bor­ough are now held by the PNM. They said coun­cil­lors—in­clud­ing Gar­cia- will be sworn in at 10 am to­day.

Ari­ma may­or des­ig­nate Bal­li­ram Ma­haraj and al­der­men Derek King and Irene Med­i­na will be sworn in on Mon­day.

PNM ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cials didn’t im­me­di­ate­ly com­ment on the out­come yes­ter­day. Oth­er PN­Mites said the par­ty would ob­serve the UNC’s ac­tion in the mat­ter first.

They said the Ari­ma North­east win had in­creased PNM’s seats in the LGE and es­ti­mat­ed the par­ty had “ap­prox­i­mate­ly” 23 al­der­men.

Ari­ma North­east was the sec­ond to last of the 141 elec­toral ar­eas to be fi­nalised fol­low­ing the LGE elec­tion.

The fi­nal area—Lengua/In­di­an Walk—is pend­ing af­ter the UNC legal­ly chal­lenged the EBC re­gard­ing a re­ject­ed bal­lot there. That mat­ter will be heard in court ahead.

Top UNC of­fi­cials said the par­ty is con­sid­er­ing the Ari­ma North­east out­come.

They ex­pressed con­cern that at one point yes­ter­day, it ap­peared that EBC’s check had re­sult­ed in a tie again but by last evening, the seat was won by the PNM. There are al­so con­cerns about con­duct of the check.

UNC’s front­lin­ers said se­nior coun­sel will make the de­ci­sion with the po­lit­i­cal leader on if the par­ty will go to court.

Be­fore 7 pm, how­ev­er, UNC PRO Kirk Meighoo said there was no of­fi­cial up­date from the le­gal team yet.

Ear­li­er, how­ev­er, UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is­sued a state­ment on the es­tab­lish­ment of LGE coun­cils.

Claim­ing vic­to­ry for the UNC and thank­ing vot­ers, she said the next step in the process is the ap­point­ment of al­der­men.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the UNC has al­lo­cat­ed 24 al­der­men po­si­tions to its par­ty and one to its NTA ac­com­mo­da­tion part­ner. The lat­ter is in Diego Mar­tin.

She said the EBC had made no al­lo­ca­tion for al­der­men in the Ari­ma Bor­ough and Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion pend­ing the fi­nal re­sults there (Ari­ma North­east check and Lengua/In­di­an walk is­sue).