Down to the wire. The People’s National Movement’s final voting list for tomorrow’s leadership election, which will pit incumbent Dr Keith Rowley against Pennelope Beckles-Robinson, will be completed by today, elections commission vice chairman Murchison Browne says. Browne said so around 7.15 pm last night, indicating that an assessment was still being done of names on a supplementary list which was issued yesterday.
The preliminary list of 79,363 was issued on April 14. But members of Team Penny had protested that many names were dropped. Two weeks later queries lodged resulted in the list being increased to 81,529. Team Penny has continued to insist that names of bona fide PNMites are not on the list. This led to the PNM general council agreeing last weekend to allow a supplementary list yesterday. This was to comprise names that “fell off” the preliminary list.
But Browne couldn’t say how many names were on the supplementary list yesterday. He said the situation was being finalised and by today the supplementary number would be known and the final “final” list would be known. He also couldn’t estimate how much higher the 81,529 figure could increase. Browne also said he had not been in receipt of any legal action from Team Penny.
Voting for tomorrow’s poll starts at 8 am and ends at 6 pm. Browne said he expected results by about 9 pm or 10 pm. He said results would be counted at polling stations by presiding officers and poll clarks and sent to Balisier House. The PNM placed ads in the media and on Facebook announcing the location of the 41 polling stations—one per constituency—for the election. Among PNM election commission regulations are that the winner must get 50 per cent of votes cast.