Palau Elections Commission Chairman Santos Borja said that the final results will be certified in seven days.
Final unofficial results gave Toribiong and Mariur a 212 lead over current Vice President Elias Camsek Chin and running mate Alan Seid after the 568 absentee ballots were tabulated.
Toribiong received 5,040 votes while Chin got 4,828 votes.
The Palau Election Commission finished counting 544 absentee ballots at 9:30 p.m. Tuesday night.
The ballots included 331 that were cast as absentee votes, 159 walk -in votes, and 54 votes cast at other polling places, 14 ballots from Sonsorol and nine from Hatohobei.
Chin and Seid on Friday Nov. 7 , conceded the election the two also went on air to publicly declare their concession.
Although Chin got most of the votes for the absentee ballots, he was not able to overcome Toribiong’s lead.
Chin got 274 votes while Toribiong received 270 votes.
There was a high turnout of voters of 73.77 percent with 14,196 registered voters and 10,473 votes cast.
Chin pledged to support Palau’s new executive leadership under Toribiong and Mariur.
The new leaders will be formally sworn in to the office tentatively on January 15, 2009.
Toribiong and Chin however decried the fact that there were 500 blank ballots.
Chin said that the commission did not make the ballot conspicuously enough.
He said several voters were confused that they forgot to vote for presidential candidate.
In the senatorial race, Surangel Whipps topped the race with 6,730 followed by lawyer Raynold Oliouch with 6,392; incumbent senator Mlib Tmetuchl, 5,646; Del. Joel Toribiong, 5,403; community activist Kathy Kesolei, 5,240; businessman Mark Rudimch, 5,106, incumbent senator Hokkons Baules, 4,634; Adalbert Eledui, 4,128; Regina Mesebeluu, 3,938; incumbent Senator Alfonso Diaz, 3,809; President Tommy Remengesau , 3,772; Regis Akitaya, 3,319 and Paul Ueki with 3,211 votes.
