Daraine Luton, Staff Reporter

( L - R )Simpson Miller and Phillips

THIS MAY be the last Sunday Portia Simpson Miller reigns as president of the People's National Party (PNP).

Conversely, today could mark the beginning of the end of an outstanding political career for Dr Peter Phillips, who is challenging Simpson Miller for the party's top job.

The destiny of both PNP stalwarts is in the hands of party delegates who will vote in the September 20 internal elections.

It is the first time in the history of the 70-year-old PNP that a sitting president is being challenged; but this has not deterred Phillips' Arise and Renew campaign.

"She failed to bring victory in the general and local-government elections (held last year), and she has failed to unite the party," Danny Roberts, Arise and Renew campaign spokesperson, said in an interview with The Gleaner last month.

In that interview, Donald Buchanan, a former general secretary and a Simpson Miller ally, said that Phillips' challenging of Simpson Miller was unfortunate, adding that Phillips was making "a fatal political mistake".

Neither Simpson Miller nor Phillips has been nominated for a vice-presidential post; therefore, next Saturday, it is either win or go home.

All available pens, writing paper and calculators are out, and several sweaty palms are nervously crunching numbers ahead of the grand showdown.

Approximately 4,500 party delegates will vote

Pundits have been busy and each camp has claimed it will win the electoral contest by at least 600 votes. Approximately 4,500 party delegates will vote for a president of the party which, last September, lost its 18-year grip on government.

In 2006, Simpson Miller defeated a classy field to become party president. She polled 1,775 votes, 247 more than her closest rival, Phillips, who recorded 1,538. Dr Omar Davies (283) and Dr Karl Blythe (204) got the minor placings.

A gag order imposed by the party's oversight committee last week has struck members of both campaign mute in public. However, sources close to Simpson Miller's Team PNP campaign have suggested that she will poll in the region of 2,500 votes and continue her reign as party president. If this information is correct, it means that Phillips would be getting approximately 2,000 votes.

But the Arise and Renew campaign, The Sunday Gleaner understands, is anticipating a victory by as much as 1,200 votes.

"I have no doubt that we are going to win this race and we are going to win it big," a supporter of Phillips tells The Sunday Gleaner.

However, not so, says a Simpson Miller man.