Harold Lovell has retained leadership of the country’s main opposition United Progressive Party (UPP) in what many thought would be a bruising leadership battle.
Up until the time of going to press, the preliminary figures showed that Lovell won by an overwhelming margin of 245 votes to 63 over his lone challenger, Richard Lewis. The results were revealed during the party’s delegates’ convention, which wrapped up late last evening at the Multipurpose Cultural Centre.
When contacted by OBSERVER on Sunday, Lovell told our newsroom he would reserve comments until after the entire process was completed. Up until 6 p.m. voting was still under way for other positions on the party’s new executive.
Lewis, on the other hand, said he would give his full support to the re-elected leader and the UPP.
In the lead up to the convention, Lewis had released a full slate of names of party faithful who were in support of his bid for leadership.
The first name listed on the poster captioned “New Leader, New Direction. Ready to Listen” was the party’s current public relations officer Damani Tabor, who was identified as seeking the position of UPP Chairman. He was also easily dispatched by the incumbent D. Gisele Isaac who polled 237 voted to Tabor’s 75
The other names were Arif Jonas, Michele Lynch, Philip Harris, Kyron Simon, Trevor Young, Gregory Athill, Rachel Collis, Dwight Shaw, Tahambay Smith, Vaugh Conner, Ruetoya Browne and Bryan De Silvia.
Running for the position of General Secretary, Michele Lynch was dusted off 260-45 by Shawn Nicholas, while Rachel Collis’s bid for the Treasurer could only muster 56 votes to George Daniel’s 236.
Lovell had earlier announced that he would not be releasing a slate, explaining that it could cause division within the party—something which he recalled has happened before.