The People’s National Party (PNP) has taken the Chester Castle Division in Hanover Eastern, meaning the Opposition party is on course for a historic clean sweep of the country’s smallest municipal corporation with seven divisions won, compared to zero for the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), following Monday’s Local Government Election.
In the 2016 Local Government Election, the PNP won four seats to the JLP’S three, while the PNP won five to the JLP’S two in 2012.
The Electoral Office of Jamaica (EOJ) has confirmed in its latest update of the final count of Monday’s election that the Chester Castle Division has been won by the PNP’s Wynter McIntosh, a former mayor of Lucea. After the preliminary count on Monday night, the seat was called for the JLP’s Kaydeen Myles-Campbell. She was declared the winner by 17 votes, after polling 1,115 to the 1,098 polled by McIntosh.
However, following the final count of the boxes for the division on Tuesday night, McIntosh was declared the winner after polling 1,195 votes to Myles-Campbell’s 1,014, a difference of 181 votes.
JLP Member of Parliament for Hanover Eastern, Dave Brown, has told the media that the party will be looking to see what transpired between Monday and Tuesday that saw the seat going to the PNP by such a large margin.
Meanwhile, if there are no other changes in any other division as the final count progresses, the JLP will have no local representative in Hanover.
The latest update from the EOJ, which covers the 150 electoral divisions completed up to mid-afternoon on February 28, shows the JLP winning 74 divisions to the PNP’s 74. There are 228 electoral divisions islandwide.
