Wes­ley Gib­bings

More than 62,000 Grena­di­ans go to the polls to­day in an elec­tion which pits a bad­ly splin­tered rul­ing par­ty against a resur­gent op­po­si­tion. The Bar­ba­dos-based CADRES, head­ed by poll­ster Pe­ter Wick­ham, had in late Jan­u­ary con­tro­ver­sial­ly pre­dict­ed an 11 per cent swing in favour of the Kei­th Mitchell-led NNP–a sce­nario with po­ten­tial­ly dis­as­trous im­pli­ca­tions for the Na­tion­al De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Con­gress (NDC) ad­min­is­tra­tion of Prime Min­is­ter Till­man Thomas.

The re­lease of the CADRES poll was quick­ly dis­missed by NDC of­fi­cials who claimed the agency had been hired by the NNP to pro­duce skewed sur­vey re­sults. Thomas him­self said he was not both­ered by the poll find­ings and was cer­tain the elec­torate would re­turn him to of­fice.For­mer NDC ad­vis­er, Flori­da-based Ham­let Mark, how­ev­er, was yes­ter­day among those lend­ing cre­dence to the CADRES poll. Mark said the state of the econ­o­my and "lead­er­ship" would be the de­ci­sive is­sues.

In the 2008 gen­er­al elec­tion, the NDC had over­turned the NNP's slen­der ma­jor­i­ty of 8-7 by win­ning 11 of the coun­try's 15 par­lia­men­tary seats. In 1999, the NNP had a clean sweep of all 15 con­stituen­cies.The Thomas ad­min­is­tra­tion has, how­ev­er, been plagued by in-fight­ing among its se­nior mem­bers. The prime min­is­ter pro­rogued par­lia­ment last Sep­tem­ber to avoid a vote of no con­fi­dence mo­tion moved by for­mer for­eign min­is­ter, Karl Hood. One se­nior par­ty of­fi­cial lat­er said the move was made by Thomas to avoid a "coup."

By then, the rul­ing par­ty's gen­er­al sec­re­tary, Pe­ter David, who had been iden­ti­fied by NDC of­fi­cials as the leader of much of the ear­ly dis­sent, had al­ready re­signed from the cab­i­net.

Lead­ing NDC mem­bers Gly­nis Roberts and Hood al­so re­signed their cab­i­net po­si­tions last year.Hood raised eye­brows a week ago when he ap­peared on an elec­tion plat­form with Mitchell. Roberts has al­so formed her own po­lit­i­cal par­ty, the Na­tion­al Unit­ed Front (NUF), which is fight­ing three seats in to­day's elec­tion.

David has, mean­while, told re­porters he nei­ther plans to sup­port the NDC nor en­dorse the op­po­si­tion NNP.Both par­ties con­tin­ued mo­bil­i­sa­tion ef­forts yes­ter­day to en­sure high turnouts by their sup­port­ers.On Sun­day, the NNP led a mo­tor­cade from the north of the is­land to the south where a ral­ly was host­ed. An NDC mo­tor­cade, with sup­port­ers dressed in yel­low, head­ed in the op­po­site di­rec­tion end­ing with a ral­ly in the north.

Thomas closed Sun­day's pro­ceed­ings with an ap­peal to vot­ers to help his ad­min­is­tra­tion con­tin­ue "man­ag­ing the as­sets of the coun­try ef­fi­cient­ly."Mitchell, mean­while, told sup­port­ers don­ning the par­ty's trade­mark green t-shirts the NNP planned to re­turn to of­fice to "be­gin the re­cov­ery and growth" of the econ­o­my.The main plat­form is­sues have been the state of the econ­o­my and the qual­i­ty of gov­er­nance de­liv­ered by the re­spec­tive par­ties. The NNP had run the coun­try for 13 con­sec­u­tive years when it lost in 2008. It of­ten came up against the me­dia and was plagued by claims of cor­rup­tion and mal­ad­min­is­tra­tion.

The NDC has been hit by in­ter­nal po­lit­i­cal squab­bling and has wres­tled with a slug­gish econ­o­my, reg­is­ter­ing on­ly mod­est growth in the agri­cul­ture sec­tor. Its man­i­festo promis­es a more in­tense fo­cus on tourism, agri-busi­ness, en­er­gy and ed­u­ca­tion.The NNP, by con­trast, promis­es a "new econ­o­my" with a fo­cus on "green" busi­ness­es and in­dus­try and lifestyles "com­mit­ted to sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment."Polling sta­tions through­out the three is­lands of Grena­da, Car­ri­a­cou and Pe­tit Mar­tinique open at 6 am.The elec­tion is be­ing ob­served by mis­sions from the Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com), the Com­mon­wealth Sec­re­tari­at and the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS).