Re­sults in the re­count of three seats, re­quest­ed by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) are ex­pect­ed to be com­plet­ed lat­er this week. 

On Tues­day, the UNC trig­gered re­counts in three con­stituen­cies:  San Fer­nan­do East; Mal­abar/Mau­si­ca (for­mer­ly D’Abadie/O’Meara) and Arou­ca/Lopinot (for­mer­ly Lopinot/Bon Air West) seats. 

The can­di­dates for the San Fer­nan­do East seat are Bri­an Man­ning (PNM), John Michael Al­i­bo­cas (UNC) and Ken­rick Serette Pa­tri­ot­ic Front. Mean­while, Mal­abar/Mau­si­ca was con­test­ed by Do­minic Ro­main (PNM), Do­minic Smith (UNC), and Ani­ta Han­key (PF). Arou­ca/Lopinot’s can­di­dates were Mar­vin Gon­za­les (PNM), Na­tal­ie Chai­tan-Ma­haraj (UNC), Nicholas Lee (PF) and Nico­lene Tay­lor-Chin­chamee (NTA). 

Pre­lim­i­nary re­sults re­leased by the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) on Tues­day showed the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) se­cur­ing 26 seats, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) win­ning 13, and the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty tak­ing two. 

Yes­ter­day, in its up­dat­ed pre­lim­i­nary re­sults re­lease, the EBC said in the San Fer­nan­do East the elec­torate was 25,607 with 13,909 vot­ing.

Man­ning got 7,026 votes, Al­bo­cas re­ceived 6,357 and Ser­rette re­ceived 490 votes. Over­all, 36 votes were re­ject­ed. 

In Arou­ca/Lopinot, Gon­za­les re­ceived 7,961 votes, Chai­tan-Ma­haraj re­ceived 7,699 votes, Lee 538 votes and Tay­lor-Chin­chamee re­ceived 146 votes. In all 16,381 vot­ed out of the 28,493 el­i­gi­ble to cast their bal­lots. 

In Mal­abar/Mau­si­ca 29,515 vot­ers were reg­is­tered with on­ly 16,000 in­clud­ing the re­ject­ed 48 be­ing cast. Ro­main re­ceived 7,690, Smith got 7,428, and Han­key 834. 

Asked for an up­date on the re­count, Chief Elec­tion Of­fi­cer Fern Nar­cis-Scope told Guardian Me­dia that re­sults will come lat­er this week as the re­count in each polling dis­trict is be­ing checked by the re­spec­tive Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cer. 

Mean­while, Al­i­bo­cas was emo­tion­al yes­ter­day as he lament­ed that nei­ther of his par­ents was alive to see him con­test a gen­er­al elec­tion. He said it was their love that gave him the strength to break through PNM elec­toral strong­holds and win hearts across the con­stituen­cy.

As votes were still be­ing count­ed, Al­i­bo­cas broke down in tears, re­mem­ber­ing his moth­er, Gail At­tong, who died in 2011.

In her mem­o­ry, Al­i­bo­cas said he had tak­en on a fight against Bri­an Man­ning, whose fa­ther, for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, had been MP for 44 years.

Al­i­bo­cas, who is al­so known as “Makamil­lion” and “Makaveli,” said he en­tered pol­i­tics to ho­n­our his late moth­er’s wish­es. Be­fore she died, he said he made a promise to care for his grand­moth­er, his busi­ness Char­lie’s Black Pud­ding, and a sib­ling.

“I just want to tell T&T, that when you are brought up in a fam­i­ly of love, ho­n­our your par­ents and your days shall be longer. I have ho­n­oured my mom since lo­cal gov­ern­ment and she walked with me,” he added.

Even though his par­ents were no longer alive, Al­i­bo­cas said the in­com­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had al­ways treat­ed him as a son.

He added he was pleased with the in­roads he made in San Fer­nan­do East, a PNM strong­hold.

“Mon Re­pos was won, Corinth Hills, that en­tire area of St Madeleine. Some of these ar­eas were strong PNM ar­eas. When you watch Tar­o­dale, there are eight elec­toral dis­tricts, and we did well.

“In Pleas­antville, we al­so did very well. We had 50/50 sup­port. I did my best to bring it to 40/60, and it hap­pened. We won Pleas­antville when it came to the dy­nam­ics, we got sup­port. That is where the UNC won.”