Montserrat: Easton Taylor-Farrell sworn in as new Premier

Premier Easton Taylor-Farrell was sworn into office on Tuesday, a few hours after leading his Movement for Change and Prosperity (MCAP) into reversing its 2014 electoral defeat and winning Monday’s general election.

“It is a bitter sweet celebration, now that we have come home, in the MCAP camp we are celebrating. I must admit I would have preferred to have a bit larger majority, that’s not the case but we will work with what we have for the benefit of this country,” he said, indicating that his cabinet would be made known later this week.

Taylor-Farrell, who took over the leadership of the party after then Premier Reuben Meade lost the 2014 general election to the People’s Democratic Movement (PDM), said the time has now come to heal the nation and he would also be placing much emphasis on the youth of the island.

He said he wanted to thank all those who participated in the elections as well the new voters and the other parties “for running a competitive campaign even though there were disagreements with many of their policies, principles and tactics.”

Outgoing premier, Donaldson Romeo, who had been ousted as the PDM leader mere weeks before the election, was the only successful independent candidate in the election, according to preliminary results.

The MCAP won 5 of the 9 seats in the Legislative Assembly, while the PDM headed by the outgoing Communications, Works, Energy and Labor Minister, Paul Lewis, won 3 seats.

MCAP’s Crenston Buffonge led all of the 35 candidates in the election, receiving 1 378 votes, ahead of Lewis 1 251 and Taylor-Farrell 1 149 votes, in the island’s post-volcano single-constituency, nine votes-per-person system. Romeo received 1 060, the fourth highest number of votes counted.

According to the Electoral Office, the voter turnout was 62 percent with 2 411 of the 3858 registered voters casting ballots.

Among the casualties of the election was the former speaker of the Legislative Assembly, Shirley Osborne. Her brother David Osborne, was successful as a candidate for the PNM, receiving 947 votes.

The head of the International Election Mission, Jamaican Julian Robinson, told the media that the team visited all of the 8 polling stations and that the process was smooth and the staff very well trained. Robinson called it one of the smoothest elections he had ever seen and that the team will present its preliminary findings on the election observation on Wednesday. -(CMC)