The considered main opposition here is taunting the ruling New National Party to call the talked about general elections now.

The poll is due inside the first half of next year, but the widespread speculation here is that it will be held in 2003.

Incumbent Prime Minister Keith Mitchell himself has said that he is one not to go down to the wire.

But reports here suggest that there is debate inside the New National Party as to when the poll will be held.

Speculation about January has given way to a March poll. Now there is talk about June.

"No one really knows since this is up to the prime minister himself and he has not told anyone of us," a party official told CARIBUPDATE.COM.

But some analysts here are doubting that there will be a June vote. The guess is now for a vote later in the year.

Coming off a weekend retreat with candidates on Sunday which was followed up by an impressive public meeting in rural St Davids, NDC leader Tillman Thomas has been speaking of a come-from-behind victory.

The party, battered in the 1999 general elections when NNP made an unprecedented clean sweep, has as its slogan, "We ready now!"

Thomas said the reason why the elections are not yet called is because the ruling New National Party’s own polling shows that it is trailing what he called a resurgent NDC.

Recent media reports here had suggested that an internal NNP poll had showed that the ruling party can win only three seats in general elections – a claim that has been denied by Prime Minister Dr. Keith Mitchell.

“The NNP is stuttering on the way to the polls and now the Prime Minister is out of his depth as to when he should call the poll, hoping that with time they will make up for lost ground,” Thomas declared.

“But this government is caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, since we are confident that we are also getting stronger with time. We are entrenching our position all the time,” the NDC leader said.

Thomas said that based on the reports he received from the candidates at Sunday’s session he is more convinced that ever that they are even more up to the task of what he expects to be a grueling election campaign.

“It says a lot about this current administration that less than five years after it won an unprecedented 15 seats it is now just clinging on to power,” Thomas, who runs on a platform of integrity in government, said.

Hundreds of villagers from La Tante and surrounding areas listened to Thomas and a line-up of other candidates and other activists, including well-known St David’s political activist Teddy Victor at Sunday night’s meeting, in between dancing to local parang song “The Country Needs A Change” and a calypso “Vote Them Out.”


PROVIDED BY CARIBUPDATE.COM