The leader of the Cook Islands Party, Henry Puna is at a loss as to how he and his deputy leader both lost their seats in the country's general election last week.
The preliminary results show the Democratic Party won 14 seats while CIP won ten seats with 500 special votes still to be counted.
Mr Puna trails the demo candidate Apii Piho by eight votes in the Manihiki electorate in the northern group, says he was surprised by the result for him and his deputy.
"It was quite a disappointment particularly with the leader and the deputy leader of the party being bundled out, at this stage anyway. So that was quite a disappointing result."
Meanwhile, the electoral office is waiting for the ship Lady Elizabeth to arrive from the outer islands with the ballot boxes so they can complete the final count, by this week.
