THE EDITOR, Sir:

On July 8, Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller announced the long-awaited date for general election as Monday, August 27. This was the last date that I would have expected the Prime Minister to announce.

Immediately upon the PM's announcement, I recalled having heard weather experts predict that the 2007 hurricane season is to be an active one. Within days after the announcement, I contacted the Weather Channel and did a research which revealed that the late August to early September period is usually an active segment of the hurricane season, the statistical peak being September 10.

Back-up date

Some days after the announcement, the Office of Disaster Preparedness and Emergency Management advised that a back-up date should be set in the event of a natural disaster. Historically, hurricane-season activities tend to pick up around that time and given the uncertainty as to where a system will track, every Caribbean country is at risk.

If the Prime Minister or her advisers had taken time out to visit the Electoral Office of Jamaica's website, she/they would have seen that no general election has ever been held in August or September. Shouldn't there be an obvious reason for this?

News readers would have recalled that when the PM announced the election date on July 8, most election watchers were figuring on a date at the end of July or early August (somewhere between July 31 and August 7). For those of us who watched the two-hour-long presentation by Mrs. Simpson Miller on July 8, the announcement shocked many of her senior Cabinet ministers who stood or sat on the platform in bewilderment.

Classes suspended

All kinds of speculation now exist as to when will be the election date. School administrators, like myself, find it difficult to arrange orientation exercises for staff and students and the commencement of classes as we would hate to have to suspend classes to accommodate election day, especially at the start of a new academic year.

It is so ironic that Winsome Callum of the Jamaica Public Service Company announced, two days after 'Mas Dean' struck the island, that it would take weeks before full power could be restored. I am sure I heard that the Electoral Office of Jamaica has gone 'high tech'. If it is so, how would these 'high-tech equipment' function satisfactorily without electricity at so many polling divisions/stations islandwide?

An August 27 election date would have exposed the country to the perilous dangers of a hurricane or delays. With so many brilliant minds in the People's National Party, could no one have convinced the PM to announce a date outside of the major hurricane season? Or is it that she never asked for advice? Or is it that she would not have listened?

For sure, one party, more than the other, is happy that 'Mas Dean changed course and didn't come full speed ahead'.

Walk good, my friend!

I am, etc.,

COLIN O. JARRETT

Educator

cojarett@yahoo.com

Montego Bay

Via Go-Jamaica