Despite his party's five other candidates all losing, Bossano had had a personal triumph, polling only sixty-four fewer votes than Hassan.

[4] The election was called "the dockyard election",[5] as almost the only campaign issue was the British Government's plans, agreed with Hassan's AACR government, to transfer the Gibraltar Royal Naval dockyard to Appledore International, with new investment from Britain of £ 28 million, but with a loss of some four hundred jobs.

The Democrats' platform was that on winning the election they would renegotiate the deal and press Britain for a further £5 million to pay for economic diversification.

The leader of the Socialist Labour Party, Bossano, was also a leading member of the Transport and General Workers Union, the biggest labour organization in Gibraltar, and his position was that Appledore should be sent packing and the British government's £28 million should be spent "to relaunch Gibraltar's economy on a sounder and more durable foundation".

[5] Despite the re-election of Hassan's AACR administration, all eight of its candidates being elected to the House of Assembly, there was a dramatic turn of events in the politics of Gibraltar, with Isola's Democratic Party, the main opposition to the AACR since 1980, losing all six of its seats, and Bossano's Socialist Labour Party winning seven and taking over as the official opposition.