And while Cayo was a disappointment for the PM, Punta Gorda could have been the same. The ruling party was in trouble there just a. Few weeks ago - and - at the party leader's directive - they flushed high level operators and national political figures into the small town to snatch a victory out from the jaws of likely defeat.
But, for repeat Mayor Carlos Obeah Galvez - it was almost a loss!
He needed multiple recounts and maybe some of that "old black magic" to secure a victory.
In PG the counting room was nothing but a bundle of nerves on both sides, given the number of discrepancies that were occurring throughout the night involving spoiled ballots.
This eventually led to two recounts that went all up into the morning, and once the numbers were sealed and confirmed, the PUP Mayoral elect Carlos Obeah Galvez says that both sides still continued to argue over the counting of votes. He told us what exactly went down that night that brought them to a close margin with the UDP slate.
Carlos "Obeah" Galvez, PUP Mayoral elect
"In terms of the Election Day and the counting as you asked normally your agents are in that room, and your agent first and utmost assignment and responsibility is to protect, and I'm be sure that every ballot is in the candidates favor in this particular Case it's candidates it's more than one, 7. There were a lot of discrepancies in terms of spoilt ballots. What is considered to be spoiled what is considered to be rejected and those are the ballots that are questionable. Those are the ballots that we dealt with and of course we have to have a senior agent in that room and I think that is one of the advantages our team PUP team 7 the PG had. So we capitalized on that opportunity, Of course we did have to have trainings there were several training sessions and we put that training to work, so yes, the UDP contemplated and we argued for a period of time, and we did decide that at one point because they were talking about whether the numbers were correct and around the table. This is one unique election you have five candidates. And every candidate had their representative out there and what happened around that table everyone had a different number. so obviously something was wrong and we argued and argued and I believe at some point when the returning officer decided to intervene and said well, what is the discrepancy and we said I believe that all representative agents count ballot that was rejected and we argued and argued until we said we are not making any headway unless we recount it was already late and I guess some people drop asleep around the table. But our agent's eyes were open and we argued and we got a recount, and it was in our favor."
