• Seaga qualifies to write spy fiction - Patterson

The Island's two main political parties continued to drum up support for Thursday's general election on the weekend, both spending time in western Jamaica.

On Friday JLP leader Edward Seaga and his team went to St. Elizabeth, while PNP president P.J. Patterson led his campaign train through St. James on Saturday, ending with a mass rally in Sam Sharpe Square, Montego Bay.

At that meeting, Prime Minister Patterson raised the issue of the 250 ballot papers which found their way into the JLP's headquarters in Kingston and questioned the motive of the opposition party for waiting three days before making an official report.

Noting that to hold off reporting a crime is itself an indictable offence, the Prime Minister declared: "I want to know who received the voters' list in the JLP office, who received the ballots, who stole them from the Electoral Office, who told them to steal it and who paid them for stealing it."

He demanded of law enforcers that they "spare no effort until they bring the criminal culprits to justice".

The JLP's claim that the straying ballots were masterminded by the PNP as part of a plot to boost votes in six constituencies was shot down in a counter by Mr. Patterson as a "story (that) qualifies Mr. Seaga - when we're finished with him Thursday - to become a writer of spy fiction".

Mr. Patterson, who was initially against inviting international election observers, added: "This time I am glad that international observers are here, so that when we are finished with him he can't run and whine and complain. They will know him for what he is."

Mr. Seaga's insistence that Jamaica is about to return to IMF borrowing - denied in Parliament by Finance Minister Dr. Omar Davies and during the National Political Debate last Thursday by Patterson - continues to irk the Prime Minister, who sees the cutting of ties as one of his administration's single most significant achievements.

Liar, liar

"Tonight I say to Eddie, produce one piece of evidence that this Government has been in any discussion with the IMF about returning to the borrowing window or stand forever condemned as a self-confessed liar," he declared to the receptive crowd, estimated by the police at 40,000.

Then having had "enough of Mr. Seaga - for now", Mr. Patterson, in what he described as "political cargo to deliver", went on to reel off a 25-point list of claimed PNP achievements in its past two terms that he said would assure his party the historic third term, and himself a second as PM.

Both the PNP and the JLP took their teams through Corporate Area constituencies yesterday. The PNP ended with a meeting in Maverly, St. Andrew and the JLP had its meeting in Half Way Tree, St. Andrew. The PNP will end its campaigning on Wednesday.