Election officials in Pembroke East might be better served weighing the PLP votes in future rather than counting them after PLP stalwart Ottiwell Simmons swept to victory last night.

Mr. Simmons took 82 percent of the vote in the heart of the seat which he has represented since 1976.

United Bermuda Party opponent Walter Cross, 63, a veteran of three election campaigns predicted a close win for his party nationally before the polls closed.

And he was upbeat about his own 17 percent share of the vote describing it as a very good showing and said he would stand again.

There was one rejected ballot.

But he declined to say whether his party needed to change its leader or policies to avoid future drubbings.

Drugs and crime played a big part in campaigning on the doorsteps in the seat which ranges from Band Room Lane down North Shore to the incinerator and almost all of Palmetto Road.

Mr. Simmons said addressing these issues should form part of the PLP's agenda for its second term along with the issue of housing.

"These are bubbling to the top rather than just floating. We have to do something."

Locally Mr. Simmons said he had been disturbed to hear from voters of new areas in his seat which had been blighted by drugs, although he declined to name them into he had checked them more fully.

But he repeated his belief that the focus needed to be turned on the buyers who kept the sellers in business and he called for a cultural centre for the Island's youth.

He said supporters had been "almost euphoric" in their enthusiasm to vote him back although the turn out had been lower.

RESULTS

Ottiwell Simmons (PLP) 618

Walter Cross (UBP) 127