The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) has retained its 32 seats in the country's 60-seat parliament following a by-election in the North East St Catherine seat.
The JLP's Gregory Mair soundly beat the opposition People's National Party (PNP) candidate Granville Valentine by 2,657 votes to hold on to the seat he held before he lost the seat won in the September 2007 general elections due to his dual citizenship.
The country's High Court disqualified Mair on the grounds that he held both Venezuelan and Jamaican citizenship at the time of his nomination for the 2007 general election. Mair gave up his Venezuelan citizenship and ran for election against Valentine.
In 2007 Mair won the seat with 6,064 votes; his PNP opponent Phyllis Mitchell received 5,015 votes in a constituency of 18,289 registered voters.
His margin of victory this time around was much larger than when he beat Mitchell in the 2007 general elections. Then, he won by 959 votes.
"I thank the organising committee and the supporters of the party who voted and I will represent them to the best of my abilities," Mair said after his victory.
Tuesday's by-election contest was the second this year. In March, JLP candidate Daryl Vaz retained the West Portland seat after successfully winning a by-election against the PNP's Kenneth Rowe.
Vaz had been ordered to vacate the seat and a by-election ordered after it was discovered he held United States citizenship at the time of the 2007 general elections.
At least two other dual citizenship challenges brought against JLP parliamentarians are still to be settled by the court.
The result of Tuesday's vote leaves the JLP's parliamentary majority unchanged. In 2007 the JLP won 32 seats with the PNP getting the other 28.
No comments:
Post a Comment