St. George’s, January 31, 2013 – All is reported not to be well in the political campaign of the incumbent National Democratic (NDC), which is seeking reelection at polls scheduled for February 19.
“The campaign is said to have different pulls, with only the weekend rallies having a semblance of a national campaign,’’ Caribupdate Weekly is reporting.
“Insiders speak of a largely disjointed national campaign effort, with a lot of emphasis placed by Nazim Burke’s allies in ensuring that he survives in St George’s North East,’’ the paper added.
Burke, finance minister and deputy to Prime Minister Tillman Thomas, easily won St. George’s North in the party’s 11 – 4 general election victory in 2008.
However, according to Caribupdate Weekly, “at least one independent poll shows he (Burke) is very vulnerable this time’’.
The paper, in this week’s edition, also reported on the silence in the NDC’s campaign of the party’s public relations officer, Glen Noel, who is also the government’s minister of information and national mobilization.
“Noel’s declining role became evident at the last party’s convention,’’ said the newspaper. “He was relegated to the post of public relations officer instead of a return to the chairmanship which, insiders say, he initially lobbied for.’’
Noel has attended NDC rallies but sits in the back row, “with apparently little to do about the direction of the meetings,’’ the Caribupdate Weekly report said.
“Noel is considered a Tillman Thomas loyalist, but the Prime Minister himself has had little direct influence on the campaign.’’