ALEXANDRIA, St Ann – The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) retained the Alexandria Parish Council divisional seat with a reduced margin Thursday when the party’s candidate, Winston McLeod, beat the People’s National Party’s (PNP) Shirley Campbell by 559 votes, polling 2,021 votes to his opponent’s 1,462.

McLeod retained the seat that has been voting JLP for nearly six decades and was last held by former mayor Derrick Frater who died in July and whose death necessitated the holding of the by-election .

The voter turnout reached 50 per cent, with 3,483 of the 6,900 registered persons casting ballots.

The victory means that the JLP keeps its 10 to eight majority in the St Ann Parish Council, gained in the last parish council elections in 2003.

Leading up to the election and on the day, both candidates received a lot of support from their respective party’s hierarchy with JLP leader Bruce Golding, Karl Samuda, Audley Shaw, James Robertson, Sally Porteous, Dr Horace Change and Shahine Robinson on hand for McLeod.

Campbell, McLeod’s niece, got support from Burchell Whiteman, Dean Peart, Paul Burke and Dr Karl Blythe. Polling stations opened on time and the process was peaceful throughout. There were no reports of irregularities.

McLeod, however, told reporters that some supporters complained that the processing of persons without identification went too slowly.

Returning officer Rev Lenworth Sterling said the matter was something discussed prior to the election.

“We informed both candidates prior to the election that if persons turn up at polling station without their voters ID they would have to be questioned according to questions in our black book; then they would have to be thumb printed and take an oath so they were forewarned,” Sterling said.

McLeod said his main priority for the division would be to focus on the youth in the area.

“We have a lot of problems to be fixed. I’m going to deal basically with the training of the youth in the beginning.. Young people want to do something but they can’t get work because they are not trained,” McLeod said.

Meanwhile, what could be described as an unfamiliar position for an elector, Campbell’s mother, Joyce Campbell, found herself at a cross roads, having to decide if she should vote for her daughter or her brother, McLeod.

In the end though, the senior Campbell had no difficulty in voting for her brother, following a long-standing tradition.

“I’m voting for labour,” Campbell said. “From I was small I come see my mother, everyone of my family was labour and I get benefit out (of) labourites.”

According to Mrs Campbell, she has no problems with her daughter running on a PNP ticket despite the family being traditionally, supporters of the labour party, even though she did not inform her prior to her decision.

She was asked if her daughter had tried to convince her to vote for her.

“No, no,” she replied.

She said the relationship between the two and the entire family remains cordial and there has been no ill feeling towards anyone.

JLP party supporters who converged at the entrance to the Charlton Primary school in Alexandria square, where both Campbells voted, jokingly shouted: “Who yuh voting fah? My brother, not my daughter!”