Poll favours ruling party in Friday's election in Dominca

The people of Dominica are voting Friday to elect a new government with the odds favouring the incumbent Dominica Labour Party (DLP) for a third consecutive victory.

But the two main opposition groups – the United Workers Party (UWP) and the Dominica Freedom Party (DFP) – are planning an upset based mainly on allegations of corruption in the outgoing Roosevelt Skerrit administration.

But Skerrit, 37, who has claimed that his stewardship over the past six years, has allowed the island to successfully manage the global economic and financial crisis, has brushed aside these allegations, insisting that the opposition parties are merely throwing mud in the air hoping it will stick.

He has challenged them to take the evidence before the Integrity Commission.
The latest opinion poll predicts a comfortable win for the DLP, which won 12 of the 21 seats four years ago. It suggests that the DLP will keep its seats.

The poll, conducted by the Barbados-based Caribbean Development Research Services (CADRES), while challenging the UWP, which won eight seats in the May 2005 elections, in four constituencies.

CADRES is the organization that predicted that the Congress of the People (COP) would win a majority in the 2007 general election in Trinidad and Tobago.

A record number of 62 candidates, representing five political parties and six independents, have been nominated to contest the polls.

In the last election, there were 47 candidates with 66,000 voters eligible to cast ballots. There are 67,227 registered voters.

Observer teams from the Organization of American States (OAS) and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) are monitoring the vote.