THE PEOPLE'S National Party (PNP) says it has so far selected 50 candidates to run in the next general election, and that the party is "in good shape" based on private polls the party commissioned in August this year.
Speaking at a press conference at the party's Old Hope Road headquarters in Kingston, PNP campaign director Dr. Paul Robertson said the remaining 10 candidates will be selected in time for the election which must be held by March 2003.
"I don't think we need to get into the business of setting a date," he told reporters. "There'll be sufficient time to properly select these candidates, properly work with them to make sure they are the right people, and in good time we will have the full slate."
The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) says it has so far selected 58 candidates.
Meanwhile, General Secretary Maxine Henry Wilson, who is also helping to rev up the PNP's election machinery, said 12 new candidates have already been confirmed to run in the election while the fate of another five or six lay in the outcome of this weekend's meeting of the party's National Executive Council (NEC).
"We really are going for the question of representation and people who are in for the long haul," Mrs. Henry-Wilson said. "It's not an easy road and therefore we have to satisfy ourselves that people are in it to represent the public."
Meanwhile, Dr. Robertson said a poll done in August this year by an international pollster the party hired, showed that the PNP continued to improve its chances of remaining in office for a fourth term. He, however, refused to provide figures when asked.
"We continuously do soundings. We have been doing a number of constituency polls, and nothing that we have found would make the People's National Party scared of facing the electorate," he said, in apparent reaction to a claim made by Opposition Leader Edward Seaga on Sunday that the PNP was afraid of calling an election because of the crumbling economy and social infrastructures after 12 years in power. Mr. Seaga made his comments at the JLP's 58th annual conference at the National Arena.
Meanwhile, Mr. Robertson quickly added that polls don't necessarily win an election. "Therefore, it is very important that we put in place, on the ground, the best candidates and the best level of organisation, and that is exactly what the general secretary has left the Cabinet to go and do," he said.
