Wynter McIntosh (PNP) vs Dave Brown (JLP)

THE MAJORITY of electors in East Hanover have voted for the political party that has been elected to form the Government on all but two occasions.

Of the 15 contested general elections, the JLP has won six and the PNP eight.

Independent candidate Joseph Zechariah Malcolm defeated the JLP’s Greville Ribton Levy by 395 votes in the 1944 election.

The JLP then won the 1949 election by 2,142 votes, lost the 1955 election to the PNP and regained it through Arnold Jackson in 1959.

JLP candidates won elections in 1962, 1967, 1980, and 1983 (uncontested), while the PNP won the seat in 1972, 1989, 1993, 1997, 2007, and 2011.

The 2002 election saw history being rewritten. Then, Barrington Grey of the JLP beat the PNP’s Lloyd Hill by 756 votes. The PNP, however, won most seats in the House of Representatives, making it the first time, in the constituency’s history that it was not taken by the winning party.

History was further turned on its head in 2007 when D.K. Duncan came out of retirement and unseated Grey by 10 votes following a magisterial recount. Grey was the only JLP MP from the previous Parliament to lose his seat.

Duncan was returned as MP in the 2011 election after he stopped the JLP’s Paula Kerr Jarrett by 251 votes. Duncan and Kerr Jarrett have quit representational politics, paving the way for two new candidates to carve their names in the history of this weathervane seat.

Wynter enters the election knowing that the PNP has won the marginal seat in all but one instance — 2002 — since 1989. But history is also against him as the last time the PNP used a sitting mayor of Lucea to contest the polls, he lost. That candidate was Lloyd Hill, and again the year was 2002.

There are 23,618 persons registered to vote in East Hanover.

WINNING MARGIN

1944 – 395 votes Independent Joseph Zechariah Malcolm over JLP’s Greville Ribton Levy

1949 – 2,142 votes JLP’s Joseph Zechariah Malcolm over PNP’s Winsbert M. Grubb

1955 – 852 votes PNP’s Eric Campbell over JLP’s Arnold Jackson

1959 – 345 votes JLP’s Jackson over the PNP’s Winsbert Grubb

1962 – 1,224 votes JLP’s Arnold Jackson over PNP’s Eric Campbell

1967 – 1,200 votes JLP’s Arnold Jackson over PNP’s Donald Smith

1972 – 911 votes PNP’s Dr Aston King over JLP’s Donald Jackson

1976 – 150 votes PNP’s Dr Aston King over JLP’s Basil Buck

1980 – 2,994 votes

JLP’s Buck over PNP’s Dr Aston King

1983 – Unopposed

PNP’s Dr Aston King

1989 – 1,431 votes PNP’s Dr Aston King over JLP’s Francis Jackson 1993 – 1,687 votes Francis Tulloch over JLP’s Horace Chang

1997 – 1,392 votes PNP’s Canute Brown over JLP’s Basil Buck

2002 – 756 votes JLP’s Barrington Grey over PNP’s Lloyd Hill

2007 – 10 votes PNP’s D.K. Duncan over JLP’s Barrington Grey

2011 – 251 votes PNP’s D.K. Duncan over JLP’s Paula Kerr Jarrett