By: Precious Mills
BASSETERRE, St.Kitts (DECEMBER, 2017)-Following the local elections held on the sister isle of Nevis on Monday 18th December, the symbolic hammer of the Concerned Citizens Movement (CCM) broke the bottle of the Nevis Reformation Party (NRP), resulting in a 4-1 victory at the polls.
The next day (Tuesday), during a special sitting of the High Court in Charlestown, CCM’s new leader Mark Brantley was sworn in as a first-time Premier of the Nevis Island Administration, upgraded from his Deputy Leader post held in previous years.
NRP’s leader Joseph Parry was the lone successful candidate for his party following this week’s elections.
Two day after the elections (Wednesday), information began circulating that Parry had resigned from his leadership position which he has held for 25 years.
There was no official word coming from the NRP and attempts to reach Parry for a comment before press time were unsuccessful.
This media house gathered, however, that Parry was planning to issue a statement but the topic of such a statement was not clear.
Interestingly, well-known professional and social commentator Dr. Patrick Martin, while speaking on Freedom FM before this week before public conversation about Parry’s speculated resignation, compared the leadership styles of both Brantley and Parry during an interview with host Juni Liburd.
“…The leader of the CCM his charisma index is higher than Mr. Parry- with all due respect to Mr. Parry and his many years of sterling service. Mark Brantley’s style is distinctively attractive. He draws you to him with his speaking style…”
After 9:00 PM on Monday 18th December after polls would have closed at 6:00 PM, the Supervisor of Elections, Elvin Bailey, kicked off the reading of the results revealing what turned out to be the only seat captured by the NRP as Parry of District 5 St. Thomas captured 518 votes beating Keith Scarborough of CCM with 229.
From the ballots casted, 1 was spoiled while 10 were rejected. In that district, 1380 voters were registered.
For district 4 St. James, CCM’s Deputy Leader Alexis Jeffers retained his seat with 833 votes from new NRP candidate Virgil Browne who won 528 votes. From ballots casted, 7 were rejected.
On the flip side, CCM’s newcomer Eric Evelyn of District 3 St. George defeated NRP’s Corey Tyson who captured 233 votes, leaving a gap difference of 528 as Evelyn amassed 761 votes.
Notably, that seat which was occupied by longstanding CCM leader Vance Amory, went in Evelyn’s favour for every box for that area which has a total of 1650 registered voters.
For District 1 St. Pauls, NRP’s Robelto Hector lost to and CCM’s Spencer Brand with 596 to 585 votes. This district saw 2025 registered voters and from ballots casted, 12 returned spoiled and 3 were rejected.
In district 2, St. John, Brantley’s area where 3910 voters were registered, the CCM leader beat Hensley Daniel, Deputy Leader of NRP by over 300 votes.
The election score was 1334 votes for Brantley and 1000 votes for Daniel. 51 ballots were spoiled.