Talk about general elections stains the air as the many tropical fruits still in bloom here.

The poll is not constitutionally due here until June next year, but everybody including Prime Minister Dr Keith Mitchell does no think it will be called that late.

Mitchell’s New National Party an incumbent with an unprecedented 15 seats is still very much the favorite to win the next poll, but it is spending an awkward time with many danger lights flashing.

In theory, it is unlikely that a party can win all the seats in a general election and lose the next one – and especially so when for the most part the opposition was largely disorganized and uninspired.

But in the last 18 months the National Democratic Congress has virtually been resurrected from the dead, and the Grenada United Labor Party seems like it is beginning to realize that as far as it is concerned there is a bigger “enemy” than itself.

The NNP has a good record of delivering services, but accusations of corruption and nepotism still haunts it, and it has somehow failed to sell the nation a wider vision, in the way the Eric Gairy(s) and Maurice Bishops have done.

As a result the middle class is restless, the labor movement distrustful and an uncomfortable junk of the population soaked in deep skepticism.

The opposition has failed to transform any dissatisfaction into solid support, and there is a big part of the center of Grenadian politics still up for grabs.

As it stands now, it is possible that the NNP can win all 15 seats again, or lose 12 of them. That is how fluid the situation is.

Fortunately for the incumbent, the election is not lost yet. But that’s good news for the opposition too. They know that the incumbent has not won it yet.




Supplied by CARIBUPDATE.COM