Premier Paula Cox’s teasing comment last week that she might call a general election sooner rather than later has ignited another round of election speculation.Ms Cox, whose decision it is, has until early 2013, or some 18 months, in which to call an election, given the five year term of the Government, which was elected in late 2007. Under the technicalities of election laws, the term of the Government ends in February, 2013, since Parliament did not sit until February, 2008 after the December, 2007 election.Traditionally, the Progressive Labour Party has not called elections when overseas students are at school abroad, and it criticised the United Bermuda Party for holding an election in November, 1998. So that means Ms Cox only has two windows a year in which to call an election; the summer months, which realistically means July or early August, or before Christmas.If Ms Cox wanted to call a summer election, she would have to do so very soon. It could be held after Cup Match, but campaigning then is famously difficult. Still, there are arguments in favour of holding an election sooner rather than later. Ms Cox is still fairly popular, although off the highs she enjoyed when she first took office. Economic conditions seem likely to worsen further before they get better and the real effects of the Budget are only now being felt in terms of job losses and reduced incomes.Crime, the other major issue of the day, is a wild card. Although the Opposition can score some points because it predicted the increase in serious crime in 2007 and afterwards, and can rightly criticise the police budget cuts now, there is not a huge difference in approaches between the parties at this stage, and the detection and prosecution of serious crime remains the responsibility of the Police and the Governor. But an upsurge in serious gun crime would certainly play a role in any general election.The Opposition is less divided now with the formation of the One Bermuda Alliance and the dissolution of the Bermuda Democratic Alliance. While Kim Swan’s UBP rump continues, it is unlikely to be a major factor in a general election. So Ms Cox may have missed a golden opportunity to take advantage of the split Opposition earlier in the year to gain her own mandate. Nonetheless, the OBA is still under construction and while it is likely it will grow stronger over time, this remains a good time to strike. Thus, there are good reasons to hold an election now. But it is still risky especially given that the economy will almost certainly be the main issue, and incumbent governments have fared poorly in the current global recession.While Ms Cox and the Government continue to try to blame the poor performance of the Bermuda economy on external factors, this argument gets thinner by the day. It is a fact that Bermuda entered this recession in poorer shape than it did previous downturns and that Government allowed the economy to seriously overheat beforehand.Waste on capital projects and overspending on handouts (most of them now scaled back) meant that Government has had far less room to manoeuvre in terms of spending on capital projects now than would have been the case. And while Ms Cox claims that current borrowing is an investment, in fact, almost half of the borrowing is being used to meet debt payments, sinking fund contributions and other current account expenditures, according to the Budget estimates for the current financial year, and that assumes that Government’s economic and Budget projections are correct when they have underestimated the depth of the recession for the last two years.Clearly, this is the argument that the Opposition will make: The Government failed to prepare the Island for the recession and does not know how to bring it out of the recession now. To counter that argument, the Government must bring forward a credible plan for recovery now, but to date, it has not done so. It can also be argued that the Premier and the Government should be concentrating all of their energies on economic recovery without the distraction of an election which does not have to be called yet.There are risks for the Opposition in an early election too. It is still under the interim leadership of John Barritt and it has still to roll out substantive policies which differentiate it not only from the Government but from the UBP as well. It is difficult to see how it can do that until it knows who its leader is.For Ms Cox, there are no good choices. An election now carries substantial risks. Waiting until December or 2012 might see an economic upturn, but there is a strong possibility that won’t happen. In the meantime, the election clock will continue to tick.