The United National Congress (UNC) has lost its election petition for the district of Lengua/Indian Walk.
A GML report states that the petition was dismissed on Wednesday by High Court Judge Marissa Robertson.
The dispute arose from two recounts following the declaration of victory by the PNM candidate Autly Granthume as the winner over UNC’s candidate on election night on August 14th 2023. The Elections and Boundaries Commissions’ (EBC) decision to reject a tie-breaking special ballot for the UNC, was contested by the Opposition. However, the court upheld the rejection.
The first recount found that both candidates had received the same number of votes, however there were issues with the rejection of a special ballot in favour of the UNC candidate, which would have broken the tie.
A second recount yielded the same result as the first, with the EBC declaring the need for a bye-election.
The UNC challenged the decision to reject the ballot, while the EBC argued that officials had no choice but to reject the ballot since it was not signed by the relevant election officials.