Nine days from today, Jamaican voters will be trekking to polling stations to determine whether the incumbent People's National Party should be given a fourth consecutive term, or be replaced by its traditional rival for power, the Jamaica Labour Party.

The big question is whose last electoral dance will it be -- 68-year-old Prime Minister and PNP leader, P.J. Patterson; or that of the 73-year-old JLP leader and ex-Prime Minister, Edward Seaga, who became father of a baby girl last month with second wife, Carla.

Win or lose, the increasing talk among political pundits and media commentators is that the October 16 general election could well be the swansong of both Patterson and Seaga.

It is also an issue of consideration among the people of Trinidad and Tobago who feel, for different reasons, that today's election may signal the leadership departure of either Patrick Manning or Basdeo Panday.

As it is in Trinidad and Tobago, where a high voter response is expected for today's poll, amid speculations of either another deadlock or a winning edge for the People's National Movement, the PNP and JLP are counting on the maximum possible electors to cast their ballots on October 16.

The electoral register for next week's general election in Jamaica has increased by about 119,000 since the December 1997 poll, and now stands at just over 1.3 million, or virtually half the country's population, said the Director of Elections, Danville Walker.

There was a 65 per cent voter response at the 1997 election. The latest Stone Organisation opinion survey now suggests a likely ten per cent increase in voter turn out.

If it occurs, this will be just some five per cent short of the record set at the 1980 election when some 80 per cent cast their ballots and delivered a victory for Seaga's JLP.

Since then, the JLP has been occupying the opposition benches in the elected 60-member House of Representatives, while Patterson's PNP has secured three consecutive electoral victories, the last one by a 50-10 majority.

This was subsequently reduced to a 48-12 majority with both a successful Court petition and by-election win for the JLP.

Leadership optimism
Seaga is exuding confidence of returning to the Prime Minister's chair after a dozen years in opposition politics. But Patterson was not talking last week as an outgoing head of government while on the campaign trail in Kingston.

Perhaps the optimism of both reflects something of the optimism that Manning and Panday have been projecting in their hope to run the affairs of this country for the next five years.

But in Jamaica, as in Trinidad and Tobago, there have been the blend of strident corruption claims and expressions of fear of plans to disrupt the voting process in some constituencies.

Yet, for all that they know or have been led to believe about the extent of 'bobol' in public affairs, Trinidadians and Tobagonians may find it difficult to imagine, as the JLP's Seaga said last week, that Patterson's PNP government was "the most corrupt in the entire Caribbean region".

With a staggering debt of some US$4 billion dollars, Jamaica may indeed have the "worst debt burden in the world", on a per capita basis. But Seaga has certainly raised the stakes by his claim of Jamaica having the "most corrupt government" and being presided over the "third worst economy in the 'free' world".

For Patterson, the JLP's bossman has become hysterical by the latest results of opinion polls that continue to place the PNP with a clear lead, varying between five and ten per cent.

However, Patterson's backroom strategists are more cautious as they analyse voting patterns, crowd attendance at meetings -- both parties have been drawing huge crowds -- swing-vote and other factors.

Such as, for instance, the JLP's promise of free education to replace the current cost-sharing scheme of the PNP administration that Patterson has pledged to review.

Golding Factor
Also, the return two weeks ago to the fold of the JLP of its once dynamic chairman, Bruce Golding, who walked out from the party seven years ago in a bitter leadership row with Seaga, and formed his own National Democratic Movement (NDM).

The fact that none of the NDM's 58 candidates at the last, 1997, general election won a seat, including Golding, seems not to be a negative but a plus factor.

Especially, it seems, among middle and upper-class Jamaicans who think that Seaga's leadership was a liability that could be overcome with Golding back in the top echelon of the party.

One Jamaican journalist with whom I spoke a few days ago, feels that while Golding's late return to the JLP -- after Patterson had announced the election date -- would raise questions of integrity and credibility against him, "returning home", nevertheless, seems to have "clearly invigorated the JLP" on the campaign trail.

In the circumstances, a 10-15 per cent mood swing among voters could, therefore, still deliver a close victory on October 16 for the JLP.

As the dominant parties assess their chances, three minority parties are hoping to collectively win " a few seats" to break the PNP-JLP power syndrome -- not unlike the thinking of the Citizens Alliance leader, Wendell Mottley here in Trinidad and Tobago.

If that is just wishful thinking, according to the detractors of the peripheral parties in both Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, what is not, is the fear of planned troubles on election day to disrupt voting in some constituencies.

Jamaica's Police Commissioner Francis Forbes has stated his own unawareness of any such plot and has given the assurance of "effective preparedness" by the security forces to prevent any disruption that could make any significant impact on the voting process.

But that assurance, normally given by the police in every Caribbean state for the conduct of national elections -- as Commissioner Hilton Guy did last week -- has to be balanced against the earlier claim by the high profile head of the controversial Crime Prevention Unit, Senior Superintendent Reneto Adams.

According to him, the Police had received "intelligence information" that a plot was underway to disrupt the October 16 poll by the strategic placement of individuals, numbering between 107 to 150, posing as either election officials, election monitors of the civic group, Citizens Action for Free and Fair Elections (CAFFE), or even as plainclothes Police.