Donald Buchanan, general secretary of the governing People's National Party (PNP), said the party would be reviewing recent polls commissioned by The Gleaner, which showed that the St. Catherine South East seat was wide open.

Yesterday Mr. Buchanan told the newspaper that the PNP has taken the poll "very seriously".

"Where the numbers indicate that we have a challenge in a constituency, we are going to take those numbers very seriously and we are going to look very deeply into what are the causative factors as they are," he said.

According to a poll, which was conducted for The Gleaner by pollster Bill Johnson and his team, St. Catherine South East, a constituency which has a pattern of supporting the winning party in general elections between 1976 and 2002, is showing a virtual dead heat between representatives of the two major political parties.

In surveying 480 residents in St. Catherine South East on March 11, Johnson found that 29 per cent would vote for the opposition Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) if an election were called now, while 28 per cent of respondents are backing the ruling PNP. The margin of error for the survey is plus or minus five per cent.

Candidates

The two candidates who are getting ready to do battle at the polls when Prime Minister Simpson Miller calls the election are Deputy Mayor of the Portmore Municipality, Colin Fagan, and Opposition Senator Arthur Williams.

Fagan, a businessman, is councillor for the Edgewater division, while Williams is an attorney-at-law.

When asked by The Gleaner if there were any plans to remove Mr. Fagan in light of the recent polls Mr. Buchanan said: "We have no plans to move Mr. Fagan, South East St. Catherine is a seat that the PNP intends to win."

When Johnson asked residents who they most wanted to win if an election were called at this time, 28 per cent gave the JLP's Williams the nod, while Fagan trailed with 24 per cent support. The undecided represents a massive 45 per cent, while three per cent refused to comment.

Twenty-two per cent of respondents have a favourable opinion of the PNP's Fagan, two percentage points less than the 24 per cent that have an unfavourable opinion of him. However, 54 per cent of constituents surveyed did not have a definitive view of him.

Similarly, 55 per cent of those polled were not sure how to rate Williams' candidacy. Those who had a favourable opinion of the JLP's caretaker stood at 25 per cent, five percentage points more than eligible electors who have an unfavourable opinion of him.