Official PSA election results yet to be declared

After more than a day of counting ballots, the official results of the Public Services Association (PSA) elections were not declared up to 6 pm on Tuesday.

Speaking with Newsday earlier on Tuesday, sitting PSA president Watson Duke predicted the last of the ballots should have been counted by 5 pm but officials were unable to give any confirmation on an official winner up to an hour later.

Newsday understands the PSA's election officer Selwyn Malcolm was the only person counting ballots which led to the slow pace of results.

The election which was held on Monday was the result of three years of legal battles which began when former candidate Solomon Gabriel filed a lawsuit over concerns of a flawed voters list in 2017.

The election was originally scheduled to take place on November 23, but was delayed to December 14, when High Court Judge Nadia Kangaloo found there were several duplications in the voter's list presented by the association.

As of 11 am, figures released by the PSA on their Facebook page reported that Duke was in the lead with a total of 645 votes with Oral Saunders receiving 381 votes.

Nixon Callender and Curtis Cuffie had, so far, received 183 and 169 votes respectively with Ian Murray receiving 167 votes.

Gregory Cova also got 121 votes.

This update was later deleted from the PSA's Facebook page.

Responding to Newsday's questions via WhatsApp, Duke said he was in the lead by, "hundreds of votes" and was confident he would retain leadership of the PSA.

Almost all of Duke's opponents were not pleased with the direction of the election and expressed some interest in taking action after the results were declared.

Contacted for comment leader of Team Sentinel, Nixon Callender said he understood that special ballots were being counted up to 6 pm and said his team would send a representative to the office of the election officer on King's Court, Frederick Street, for an update.

Unlike his fellow candidates Callender said while he was disappointed in the low turnout of voters for Monday's election, his team would not take any legal action to challenge the results once it was proven the elections were free from interference.

"We are all members of the PSA and we will remain members of the association.

"Whether we like it or not the membership would have spoken. We may not like the results but we from Team Sentinel do not foresee any legal action. What I will say is when the official results are finally certified the biggest mouth might be silenced."

Newsday also spoke to head of the Unified Public Officers Oral Saunders who said despite the significant gap in votes he was confident in his chances of winning.

He said while he also noted allegations of voter padding and concerns from members who he claimed were not allowed to vote, he placed his confidence in a higher power.

"I hate to complain, because complaining makes me sound as if I'm a sore loser so I won't do that.

"If I had to respond to these reports I would simply say that God sees all and I am happy with the performance of my team no matter what the outcome of the elections are."

He also agreed with Callender that the membership was primarily responsible for selecting the PSA's leadership and chided registered members who did not vote for their inaction.

"If the people themselves don't respond, there's only so much we can do, whether they supported us or not.

"Any person that did not vote was also an endorsement to Mr Duke in the manner in which he was treating us, it shows you are okay with how he managed the PSA. That's what a non-vote does to someone like Mr Duke."

Saunders said while 12,000 members were registered to vote, preliminary results suggested only 3,500 showed up to vote, and he felt this was a reflection of Duke's impact on the trade union.

Newsday also spoke to another candidate, Curtis Cuffie, who had little confidence in the integrity of the election process.

Cuffie accused Duke of not following the election procedures and said the transparency of the process was compromised.

"People are frustrated, as the due process wasn't followed. We filed a substantive matter in court on Sunday night and the concerns we raised before the judge played out on Monday for the voting process.

"I am of the opinion that there were too many teams in the election, and after the election I will make an attempt to try and unify the other teams to try and organise another election. This is the situation as is."

Cuffie also said he already knew what the outcome of the election would be and he "would not stress himself" over a defeat, as a legal challenge was made against the PSA.