However bitter the immediate taste, there are salutary lessons for Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller in the findings of the opinion polls currently being published by this newspaper.

These surveys show that while Mrs Simpson Miller remains substantially more personally popular than her main political rival, Bruce Golding, the leader of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), her standing among the electorate has declined sharply.

And what, perhaps, should be more worrying for the Prime Minister is the fact that her ruling People's National Party (PNP) is in a dead heat with the JLP for voter support, each with a backing of 32 per cent among the electorate.

So, if perhaps, Mrs. Simpson Miller would risk the chance and exercise her constitutional right to call an election at this time, these polls suggest, both parties could reasonably expect to have a tie, or something close to it, in the popular vote.

Except that, as Bill Johnson, the pollster for this paper, has pointed out, the momentum is in favour of the JLP. Or, as he put it elsewhere, an election now for the PNP would be like playing Russian roulette with two guns in its mouth - a not altogether wholesome metaphor, but indeed a graphic one. Calling an election before she now absolutely has to is a game we, however, expect Mrs Simpson Miller to play.

These dire images have stark contrasts. It was only in March, with Mrs Simpson Miller having already won the presidency of the PNP and awaiting her accession to the prime ministership, that her party's support was 52 per cent. The JLP's was 26 per cent, which it continued to hold while the ruling party's slipped. In those early days, Mrs. Simpson Miller's personal rating reached a stratospheric 78 per cent until slipping to the 60 per cent range. Her job performance rating was also high.

Why this precipitous fall in Mrs Simpson Miller's and her party's standing? There is no single answer, we feel, but there is one which stands out more than most.

There is a sense of drift in the Government over which she presides and the Prime Minister appears not to have a firm grasp of statecraft and the intricacies of government. Neither does she seem to be in control of her party. The PNP is in disarray.

The deeper problem is that Mrs. Simpson Miller is failing to play to her strengths, the one which has served her well in politics and has taken her to the leadership of the country, that is, her charisma and capacity to motivate. This is a unique gift, in the possession of few and can be leveraged in the cause of leadership.

As she has promised, Mrs. Simpson Miller must lead from the front, talking honestly and openly with the people, taking on the fight against corruption and telling all the facts and the full truth about Trafigura and more. She has to rebuild the basis of trust.

She can't perform these tasks and see to the minutiae of government. So she should appoint a deputy prime minister and give the job not necessarily to her most trusted ally but to a competent colleague.

She would then have an opportunity to transform her prime ministership to the broad sweep of a presidency, with the room to do what she does best.