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While San Fer­nan­do East MP Bri­an Man­ning re­mains silent on his nar­row vic­to­ry in the April 28 gen­er­al elec­tion, an­a­lysts say he must work hard to re­gain the elec­torate’s sup­port if the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) hopes to main­tain its hold on the seat.

Fol­low­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ (UNC) re­quest for a re­count last week, the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion con­firmed the re­vised re­sults. Man­ning se­cured 7,017 votes—nine few­er than ini­tial­ly re­port­ed. UNC’s John Michael Al­i­bo­cus re­ceived 6,344, 13 few­er than the ini­tial count, while the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front gained 502 votes, an in­crease of 12. Re­ject­ed bal­lots rose sharply from 36 to 64.

Man­ning de­clined to com­ment when con­tact­ed, stat­ing on­ly that he had “no com­ment on any­thing,” even be­fore learn­ing the rea­son for the call. De­spite the re­count, the fi­nal out­come re­mained: a nar­row PNM vic­to­ry in what was once a se­cure seat. The re­sult marks a dra­mat­ic shift in a con­stituen­cy once dom­i­nat­ed by his fa­ther, the late Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, who held the seat for 44 con­sec­u­tive years—the longest-serv­ing MP in T&T his­to­ry.