Campaign 2007 is fascinating the pundits although some doubt the electorate is gripped. Here our panel of four tipsters, who have been predicting how the seats will fall, give their overview of the action so far.

The party opinion polls are not surprisingly giving mixed elections predictions — and so is The Royal Gazette's panel of pundits with three plumping for a PLP win and one predicting the Opposition will take it.

Former National Liberal Party leader Charles Jeffers believes the UBP will sweep most of the eastern seats but a slip-up in St. David's and a failure to break through in Warwick will give it only 17 seats to the PLP's 19.

"The unknown factor is how many PLP supporters will stay at home because they are not happy with their party but they cannot support the UBP. This is going to be a determining factor in some seats."

He said most people were subdued about the election while the parties had failed to breathe any life into the campaign. "I don't see that strong enthusiasm for either party. There are going to be some surprises. There could be lower turn out and in some cases where you see higher turn out it could be people voting the other way."

Week four of a mammoth campaign sprang few surprises but plenty of spurious press conferences.

Premier Brown had started the week by announcing what the Island thought it already knew — that the PGA Grand Slam was coming again next year. But he gathered the press for confirmation.

The PLP invited the media to Shelly Bay park to once again hear Hamilton West candidate Charles Clarke emphasise his local roots and then to listen to Environment Minister Neletha Butterfield reel off a list of initiatives which she admitted were not new.

As a news conference it lacked one essential ingredient — anything newsworthy.

Premier Brown helped tend a sick man at a restaurant table and then put out a press release and photo about his feat.

The UBP claimed they knew nothing about the Premier's plans for a satellite hospital — even though their MPs were aware of the issue in March when they were claiming he had a conflict of interest.

The week also saw the Premier appear to criticise his $100,000-a-year press secretary for mis-representing the PLP's position on deciding independence by saying it would now do this via a referendum.

Not so, said the Premier who reminded a Facebook questioner that his party preferred to do it at a general election — but not this one.

Words were exchanged over so-called hate emails circulating lampooning PLP figures while the UBP produced its own very tame animations which were more baffling than amusing.

But amid the bluster there are serious issues — even if the parties vying for power are looking similar said Mr. Jeffers.

"The PLP to a whole lot of people are beginning to look like the UBP. If the trend continues, in a few years, people will vote for anybody.

"And I long for the day when Bermudians feel comfortable voting for either party and start looking at who's going to be the best 36 in the House. I urge people to forget party labels, let's look at individuals."

But two of The Royal Gazette's pundit panel seem to think the PLP have the better individuals this time around.

Retiring MP Jamahl Simmons predicted the result on December 18 would be the same as it was nearly five years ago with the PLP snaring 22 and the UBP getting 14.

He said the worst case scenario for the PLP was the UBP sweeping all the marginals and winning 19:17 while the worst case scenario for the UBP was the PLP sweeping all the marginals and winning 26:10.

He agreed with Mr. Jeffers that numbers on the day were the key to victory.

"The higher the turnout the more likely a PLP victory — the lower the turnout the greater the chance that the seat count will be close or the government will fall."

The PLP believe the extra 3,000 voters signed up this time around will keep it in power.

Our UBP panel pundit also believes the PLP will win a minimum of 22 seats — the same ratio of PLP and UBP MPs only in different locations.

Asked for his post-election prediction he said: "I think the UBP will continue another term of their heads in the sand, believing it's the voter, not them.

"Remember the Bahamian model saw the UBP hang around for 20 years before they finally, at the 25th year, decided to call it a day when they finally decided it might be us and not the voter.

"Then I think you will see the emergence of a third entity."

However our PLP dissident believes the Opposition will win a minimum of 19 and, possibly take a few more, to put it back into Government.

She said: "If people are disaffected I am working on the premise they are savvy enough to know that it is not enough to vote for the individual, they recognise that the PLP doesn't have the capacity to self correct and that a vote for an individual is a vote for the current party leadership.

"Based on that I think you have a significant swing voter who's conservative, who looks at the absence of a party platform — no mandate or road map — as to what the PLP plan to do going forward."

She said the PLP marketing showed it hadn't attracted good sponsorship.

"Normally the party in power attracts (money) but somehow the party has never been able to attract that support. What they haven't understood is that political power and economic power are two different things and you cannot race bait people who have to be your sponsors down the road.

"I do think there will be more people that gravitate to the UBP. And I don't necessarily see these people as bad choices, I think they are just green right now.

"Whatever the UBP take is going to be slim. It won't be by a landslide."

She said this PLP administration did not understand the mentality and mindset of a PLP voter.

"A PLP voter is not a voter who will vote against you, it is a voter who will not turn up to the polls. And when you don't have things going well with your working class they become passive/aggressive, your taxi drivers are not going to get out there and driver for them this time around. They made it quite clear."

And the source, who has backed the party for years, said she doubted the modern day PLP remembered how to get its vote out.

"What they used to do is go out there and literally get these taxi drivers beat the pathways, drag these people out of bars, out of trees, clean them up, sober them up, give them coffee for six hours and get them to the polls to vote.

"There is nothing glamorous about it.

"But now they have surrounded themselves with these yuppy people who understand YouTube but don't understand the day of the election you have to crawl down to Devonshire Bay and get some slobbering drunk from there, clean him up and get him to the polls and they are going to act the a** all the way through, almost spoil their vote in the process and you are holding your breathe the whole time."

The party has made much of its snaring of white candidates. Zane DeSilva is a Portuguese construction boss while Jane Corriea is married to one.

But our source said: "I don't know what the PLP are doing playing the Portuguese vote, it is not selling well with the black working class, because a lot of those guys are small contractors — masons and labourers and they know what the practices are of the Portuguese firms.

"They are pretty awful, pretty hard to deal with, non-unionised. That is again a case of not understanding your labour constituents and understanding what they have to deal with on a day-to-day basis.

"This is the stuff Ewart doesn't understand having been abroad all those years.

"To play the Portuguese thing as a sympathy thing doesn't do much for the black working class because they don't necessarily see them as nice people."

And she said the Portuguese working class would say the same thing about their bosses who might be the same nationality but were not necessarily viewed as kind employers.

It could all lead to some shocks for the Governing party come election night, said the disaffected PLP supporter.

"Some of those large margins you saw in the election the last time around were flukes.

"They beat the base drum and did the race baiting and people bought into it. But this time around race baiting in the face of bad governance is not selling as well.

"And it is obvious they don't have a plan. Those supermarket flyers they put in the newspapers are not a plan — at least put some words with your pictures or are you assuming all your voters can't read so you have to put pictures?

"I can't see a swing voter or marginal voter voting PLP this time around. Maybe I am so jaded my analysis is wrong, but I just can't see it."