ABSTRACT
The Gibraltar General Election of 24 March 1988 marked a watershed in the politics of the Rock. Victory for the Gibraltar Socialist Labour Party (GSLP) ended 16 years during which the Association for the Advancement of Civil Rights-Gibraltar Labour Party (AACR-GLP) had guided the Rock’s affairs. When the votes were counted the GSLP emerged as the outright winner with 58 per cent of the popular vote and 8 of the 15 seats in the House of Assembly; one more than its chief rival the AACR-GLP which saw its percentage of the poll fall to an unprecedented low of 29 per cent. The newly created Independent Democratic Party (IDP), fighting its first electoral contest, trailed home a distant third; its 13 per cent of the vote proving to be too small to secure for it any representation in the new House.
