THE People’s National Party’s (PNP) Andrew Swaby is set to be the next mayor of Kingston, with his party to take control of the “prized” Kingston and St Andrew Municipal Corporation (KSAMC) after the Electoral Office of Jamaica (EOJ) confirmed on Wednesday that the party had won the crucial Kintyre Division in St Andrew East Rural.

With the preliminary EOJ results from the KSAMC tied 20-20 between the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) and the PNP after Monday’s local government elections, the Kintyre Division was the key area that would decide the winner in the popular vote.

Director of Elections Glasspole Brown told the Jamaica Observer that the PNP’s winning the Kintyre Division “has consolidated their position in the KSAMC” because it won the popular vote.

The PNP’s Vivienne Dian Brown-Bond won the Kintyre Division after polling 1,319 votes to defeat the JLP’s Kelvin Keith Clarke who polled 1,287 votes.

The preliminary results had shown that the PNP won by 29 votes. However, at the end of the final tally, the party increased its win margin by another three votes, bringing it to 32.

Earlier Wednesday confusion was evident among placard-bearing, orange clothing-clad PNP protesters gathered at the EOJ to air their grouses about the preliminary results of Monday’s elections.

Protesters with whom the Observer spoke said they believed they were being robbed of their victory in the elections and came to the EOJ to hear from the horse’s mouth exactly what was happening.

In the meantime, Brown said that at 6:00 pm Wednesday the final count for 178 electoral divisions had been completed.

Earlier in the day, representatives from the various divisions in the St Andrew East Rural constituency filled the small room at the head office of the EOJ Wednesday as the final count for divisions began in earnest.

Counting began promptly at 10:00 am, first focusing on the election day workers, police, and the military. The counting of the ballot boxes for the five divisions in the constituency then started with Kintyre some time after 1:00 pm

The process was being watched keenly by four lawyers representing the PNP and two representing the JLP.

When the Observer spoke to PNP caretaker for St Andrew East Rural Patrick Peterkin, who was also watching the process closely, he said that he had hoped to preserve or better the win margin for the PNP in the Kintyre Division and by extension win the KSAMC.

“[Kintyre] is very important to the PNP because this division, if we win it, it will make our fates better in terms of giving us the prized KSAMC to run,” he said, pointing to the number of lawyers the PNP had observing the proceedings. “We are taking it very seriously, you know…we want to win the Kintyre Division so we are taking it seriously,” he said.

According to the director of elections, the final count of votes for the five divisions of the St Andrew East Rural constituency had been transferred to the EOJ’s Duke Street head office in downtown Kingston to avoid any tensions at the counting centre which had been previously designated in the constituency.