In an exclusive interview with the Freeport News Wednesday, Farquharson expressed his confidence in victory, hours before the votes were tallied.
“I expect to win a significant amount of votes and I expect to be re-elected by a large majority,” he said.
According to Farquharson in the first unofficial count he had garnered some 550 votes to beat out his opponents Hilbert Collie and Bernand Evans.
The post of Area Vice President (AVP) for BaTelCo in Freeport is being sought by Shawn Bowe and Pearl Hall and Brando Stewart secured a victory over Michael Hepburn for the post of AVP for the Broadcasting Corporation in Freeport.
In other family islands, Freddy Pinder won AVP for Abaco and Wayne Cleare took it for Andros.
Denise Wilson was voted general secretary over Mark Cox; assistant secretary general is Dino Rolle, who won over Kevin Ingraham; and assistant treasurer is Deborah Hall.
Averil Clarke, Mario Curry and Edley Swain were elected as union trustees, while the BCPOU treasurer and executive vice president returned to their respective positions unopposed.
Some 1,400 employees from the Bahamas Telecommunications Corporation, Broadcasting Corporation and Cable Bahamas turned out to polls across the country for what was described by members as a smooth election.
The polls opened at 8 a.m. and even though the voting process did not start until almost 9 a.m., voters were scarce but not for long because by lunch time throngs of members gathered and toed a continuous long line to exercise their right to vote for their candidate of choice.
Excited about his victory President Farquharson said he and his team are committed to continuing their plans to expand the services of the BCPOU to its members.
Focus, he said will be placed on the training and retraining and education of members.
“We have completed about 80 percent of the industrial agreement for employees at Cable Bahamas and that is one of our top priorities along with completing the industrial agreement for the Broadcasting corporation of The Bahamas,” he said. “We want to go into some additional investment opportunities that will cause the members to receive pay benefits and ultimately improve their standard of living.”
Though the unofficial results were tallied on Wednesday night Farquharson explained that due to some unforeseen difficulties an official count was not done. Official results are expected sometime today.
The BCPOU is a registered Trade Union in accordance with the Industrial Relations Act 1970. At present it represents employees at the Bahamas Telecommunications Corporation, the Broadcasting Corporation of the Bahamas as well as Cable Bahamas.
By ANGELO ARMBRISTER, Freeport News Reporter
