The ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) came out of yesterday’s local government elections with control of three of the five western parish councils, after losing the municipal authority in Hanover to the opposition People’s National Party (PNP).

The exercise, which was characterised by a low voter turnout, saw the JLP retaining control of the parish councils of Trelawny, St James and St Elizabeth. The Westmoreland Parish Concil remained with the PNP.

However, the results did not daunt jubilant JLP supporters, who swarmed the electoral office in Albert Town, wildly celebrating their sweep of all four council divisions.

And in spite of the PNP’s better showing in the North Trelawny constituency, where they won two of the five divisions, there was also uncontrolled celebration by JLP supporters outside the Falmouth Court House where all the votes were tallied.

In the battle for the Hanover Parish Council preliminary results showed the PNP winning five of the seven divisions in the parish. These included the Chester Castle division, where the JLP incumbent Albert Chang was beaten by Wynter McIntosh, and the Hopewell division, which saw Derrick Foster defeating Lucea’s mayor Vasca Brown for the Hopewell division.

In the run-up to the election, the PNP hierarchy in the parish made it clear that they intended to wrest the council from the JLP.

In Westmoreland, the Opposition PNP won all of the 14 seats up for grabs in the parish. Vice-chairman of region six Luther Buchanan, who had responsibility for the parish in the local government polls, attributed the victory to hard work.

“We managed to achieve this feat because of hard work by the PNP hierarchy and the comrades on the ground,” Buchanan, who is also MP for Eastern Westmoreland, said.

In the last local government polls in 2003 the PNP had won 10 divisions in the parish. At least six of the PNP representatives are newcomers to representative politics.

Over in St Elizabeth, the JLP retained the council, winning nine of the 15 seats up for grabs in the parish.

The voter turnout across the region was very slow and incident free, creating very little work for the security forces and scores of election workers.

For instance, in Hanover, at polling station 26, less than 40 voters of the 96 voters eligible to vote cast their ballots. It was a similar situation at many of the polling divisions visited by the Observer West across the parish.

There was a similar situation in the parish of St James.

In Westmoreland Central, the seat held by Roger Clarke, the agriculture shadow minister, EOJ officials said the voter turnout was very low.

According to returning officer, Violet Tennant, while the turnout was very low, significantly less turnout of voters was observed in the capital town – Savanna-La-Mar – as opposed to rural areas.

In North Trelawny, in the Falmouth Division, where incumbent PNP candidate Garth Wilkinson was challenged by the JLP’s new-blood Paul Campbell, there was a low turnout at the 24 polling stations throughout the constituency.

Chairman of the Trelawny Parish Council Jonathan Bartley triumphed over his sister-in-law, Lorna Thorpe, who represented the PNP in the Wakefield Division, while Fernandez ‘Bingy’ Smith romped home ahead of the PNP’s, Telka Holt.

Meanwhile after the preliminary counts, both supporters of PNP newcomer Derrick Gallimore and seasoned JLP campaigner Councillor Errol ‘Juppy’ White were celebrating their victory in the Duncans Division. But, returning officer Ivan O Gordon last night disclosed that first counts showed White winning by a “slim margin”.

At the same time, the PNP’s Phillip Service, who replaced incumbent Claudette Rickards, triumphed over the JLP’s new-comer Mark Meghie by 1101 to 831 votes. Service vowed to tackle community development issues during his tenure as councillor for the division.

“There is no doubt that there is work to be done. the parochial roads must be upgraded. I was struck by a broken down bridge in Daniel Town where several children have to walk over. I would like funding immediately provided to alleviate this problem,” Service argued.