People’s National Party (PNP) candidate for South West St Elizabeth Hugh Buchanan yesterday expressed confidence that he will be a parliamentarian as the official count for Thursday’s general election got underway here yesterday.
The preliminary count at the end of polling Thursday saw the incumbent Jamaica Labour Party candidate Dr Christopher Tufton with 9,426 votes to Buchanan’s 9,325 votes.
Yesterday, Buchanan expressed optimism that the results would be reversed after the final counts are completed. He was, however, reluctant to declare what the margin of his victory was likely to be.
“It will not be a big margin, but it will be enough to take us into Gordon House,” said the young politician.
Scores of PNP supporters gathered yesterday in the Black River square — from where music blasted from a sound system — celebrating what they anticipate would be victory for their candidate after the final tally. “Losers don’t celebrate,” a jubilant Rastafarian supporter told the Observer.
Tufton won the seat in September 2007, polling 9,899 votes to defeat the PNP’s Stanley Redwood who got 8,074 votes.
