The battle for the South East St Mary seat finally ended yesterday with the Jamaica Labour Party’s Tarn Peralto retaining his majority over the People’s National Party’s (PNP) Harry Douglas.

Controversy had surrounded the seat since the declaration of the general election results on September 3, which had initially been in favour of Douglas but went to Peralto after the official count of the ballots.

In an ironic twist, the magisterial recount sought by Douglas because of the closeness of the result showed Peralto tallying 6,960 votes to Douglas’ 6,923 for a 37-vote victory, an increase of three over the amount previously announced.

The seat, however, remained in limbo after the discovery of an additional two ballot boxes containing the votes of election day workers and members of the security forces which had not been included in the previous counts, became the subject of a court action brought by Peralto to block the counting of the two boxes.

At the end of the legal tussle the Electoral Office of Jamaica (EOJ) yesterday counted the contents of the boxes.

In a press release yesterday afternoon, the EOJ said the count had shown Peralto receiving 123 and Douglas 145 of the 268 votes. It said when added to the totals from the magisterial recount Peralto stayed ahead by 15 votes.

Speaking with the Observer last night, Peralto, who was sworn in during the opening of the Parliament on Thursday despite the legal challenge to his victory, said he was satisfied with the conclusion on several counts. He said he was, however, confident that the counting of the two boxes would not have changed the initial results.

“The results of 37 will stand and it will stand in the records of the Electoral Office and in the files in Parliament. What has happened today cannot be added to that count.

“All that has happened today is that the director of elections, in counting, has satisfied his mind and the mind of the public that the results will remain the same. Those results cannot be put on the final count and this is what I have been maintaining from the beginning. It cannot change the results,” Peralto said.

However, he said although he was confident that he would have taken the seat, the situation had still been “uncomfortable and unnerving” and would have cast a shadow on his representation if the two boxes were not counted.

“It (counting of two boxes) would satisfy those who supported Mr Douglas that they will have to accept the fact that the majority have stated their position and they will have to accept me as their member of parliament and so I am happy,” Peralto said.

In the meantime, his opponent Douglas graciously accepted the defeat.

“I’m happy that the ballots were counted and that the election day workers of South East St Mary who had done everything in their constitutional rights were represented.

“I am satisfied that the ballots were intact and that there was no hanky panky and nothing untoward and I have lost by 15 votes and so it is. Life goes on, it’s not the end of the world, it’s a new beginning,” Douglas said.

The PNP veteran said he was satisfied with the entire process. “If there was any tampering or so, we would know but I think it was spanking clean,” Douglas told the Observer.