( L - R ) GORDON-WEBLEY, HENRY-WILSON

Call her old-fashioned if you wish, but from this day forward, history will record that Maxine Henry-Wilson has once again retained the tough South-East St. Andrew seat in the Corporate Area for the People's National Party (PNP), despite threats from the Jamaica Labour Party's (JLP) Joan Gordon-Webley.

Gordon-Webley, who made her return to politics and the JLP last year, predicted long ago that she would have sent Henry-Wilson into political retirement, but this was not forthcoming in yesterday's General Election.

In yesterday's poll, she failed to overturn an 859-vote majority that Henry-Wilson had established over the JLP's Philip Henriques to take the seat. Only once before in 1980 has South East St. Andrew voted for a JLP Member of Parliament.

But Gordon-Webley was not successful in forcing record keepers to rip pages from Jamaica's history books. In 1980, she was by her husband's side in the late Captain Glenmore Webley when he defeated the PNP's Hugh Small to win the PNP garrison of East Kingston and Port Royal in 1980.

Henry-Wilson had predicted that she would have won the constituency by a wide margin.