On election day Channel 7 and KREM Television had our teams at various hotspot polling locations. Here in Belize City that meant closely monitoring the Pickstock Division which came down to a margin of 78 votes. The 3 candidates Wilfred Elrington for the UDP, Dr. Francis Smith for the PUP and Patrick Rogers for the BPP vied for the support of 3,537 registered voters, and in the end 67% of them cast a vote - more than the 61% who came out in 2012.
We have that moment when Patrick Rogers exited the counting area to indicate to the awaiting press that Wilfred Elrington had won his 3rd term. Even though he only got 3.5% of the voters who did show up, he told us that he is not discouraged due to the large number of voters who stayed home. Here's how he explained it:
Patrick Rogers, UDP Candidate - Pickstock
"I had 94 for myself, 1016 for Dr. Francis Smith and Sedi Elrington with 1234."
Daniel Ortiz
"Is that the final count?"
Patrick Rogers, UDP Candidate - Pickstock
"It will be very close to that. It won't change much, because they are still doing some reconciliation, but those numbers will be pretty much to what it is. We are not disappointed. I said we couldn't be disappointed. We won in 5 weeks. Look what we did, we put 25 candidates together and at the end of it we knew that if we didn't get over 75% voter turnout, we wouldn't factor in. But we will factor in the next time around because the candidates that are serious will be working these divisions over the next election cycle."
Daniel Ortiz
"Sir, eventhough those are unofficial, that's 10% you got over...."
Patrick Rogers, UDP Candidate - Pickstock
"It's close to 5%. The thing is as I said, we knew we couldn't be disappointed. With the 5 weeks that they gave us and I can show to the media next week the results of an analysis they did. Some political scientist did an analysis that if they were to call a snap election we wouldn't have had time to get our act together - get candidates before you get financing and when you get financing you get to the media. You saw we never reached the media. We will be in the media the next time around because there are business people in the productive sector like manufacturing industries that heard our message."
Now, even though he says that he says that by his count, Elrington got 1200 votes, and Dr. Smith got just over 1000, the exact figures from the Election and Boundaries say that Elrington received 1,163, Francis Smith got 1,085, meaning that Elrington won 78 votes - four fewer than the 82 he won by in 2012. It's remarkable consistency in the face of staunch opposition and you'll hear from Elrington and Smith about this close race later on in the newscast.
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