Sir Eric Gairy, the flamboyant former prime minister, failed Tuesday in his comeback attempt in Grenada's second election since the 1983 U.S.-led invasion, complete but unofficial returns indicated. However, all four political parties opposing Gairy also failed to gained a parliamentary majority, creating uncertainty over who will lead the tiny Caribbean island's next government. With final but unofficial results in from all 15 parliamentary constituencies, the National Democratic Congress of Nicholas Brathwaite led with seven seats in the House of Representatives, or parliament, one short of the necessary majority to form a government, Radio Grenada reported. Gairy's Grenada United Labor Party won four seats, but Gairy himself was defeated in his parliamentary district, the radio said, citing the Electoral Commission. Gairy had dominated the island's politics for three decades before he was ousted in a Marxist revolution 11 years ago. Radio Grenada said The National Party of acting Prime Minister Ben Jones and the New National Party led by Keith Mitchell won two seats each. Jones and Mitchell were both returned to parliament. The leftist Maurice Bishop Patriotic Movement failed to gain any parliamentary seats. Radio Grenada said the results were complete but unofficial. Official results were to be announced Wednesday. Although the outcome was inconclusive, Brathwaite, 65, a moderate who led a 13-month interim government after the 1983 invasion, was in a strong position to become the next prime minister. He said before the election that he would not be interested in forming a coalition government, but most observers thought it likely Brathwaite and Jones would merge their parties to form a government. There was no immediate comment from any of the candidates. Turnout was estimated at 60 percent of the 58,296 eligible voters, sharply below the 85 percent recorded in the 1984 election. The election happened to fall on the 11th anniversary of the Marxist coup that toppled Gairy's authoritarian government on March 13, 1979, and brought to power the People's Revolutionary Government of the late Prime Minister Maurice Bishop. A rift in Bishop's government led to his assassination, along with 10 other people, on Oct. 19, 1983. Six days later, U.S. Marines and paratroopers, along with a small regional force, invaded the island and ousted a Marxist junta that had seized power. The Reagan administration, already alarmed by Bishop's close ties with Cuba and the Soviet Union, said the invasion was necessary to protect hundreds of medical students and prevent the island from becoming a bastion of Communist aggression in the region. Gairy, 68, and apparently nearly blind with glaucoma, earlier said he would not contest the election unless a ``miracle'' improved his sight. Last month, however, he said ``a source greater than I'' ordained that he once again lead Grenada. He also said the election came on the anniversary of his ouster not by coincidence but because it had been ``arranged cosmically by a divine force.'' Gairy, who was Grenada's first prime minister after independence from Britain in 1974, was widely regarded as repressive and corrupt. As early as 1961, Britain dissolved Gairy's pre-independence government because of alleged financial irregularities. Gairy's party won 36 percent of the vote in the 1984 election but gained only one seat, which it later lost in a party defection. The merged New National Party won 14 seats, with 58.5 percent of the vote, but later split into three groups. The election followed the death of conservative Prime Minister Herbert Blaize in December.
