It’s not entirely clear why John Gibbons has stepped down as the Progressive Labour Party candidate for St George’s West, but it provides a new wrinkle in an already complex constituency — one of the most closely watched of this election season.With Kim Swan defending his seat as an Independent, Nandi Davis running for the One Bermuda Alliance and now Renee Ming running for the Progressive Labour Party, this remains one of the most unpredictable races in the general election, and one with national consequences.Mr Swan’s main hope, if elected, is that he can hold the balance of power in the House of Assembly, assuming that the vote is 18-17.Generally, independents and third party candidates have done quite poorly, unless there was no doubt that one party or the other was going to win the election as was the case in 1989 when Stuart Hayward was elected. Voters simply refuse throw away their votes if the election is close.Both major parties are likely to blame Mr Swan if they fail to win the seat and it goes to the other party. But the risk is greater for the OBA since Mr Swan seems likely to take votes from former UBP supporters who would otherwise vote for Ms Davis.Assuming the election will be close, Mr Swan could turn out to be the Ralph Nader of Bermuda politics. Mr Nader was widely blamed for costing Al Gore the US presidency in 2000, and can therefore be held at least partly responsibility for the invasion of Iraq and the current recession, which George W Bush’s 2000-2008 administration is considered to have exacerbated.The change in candidate by the PLP will give Ms Davis some hope. Changing candidates just four weeks before the election, following a selection process that had already been controversial, will not raise morale within the PLP election team.Ms Ming does have some background in politics, via the Corporation of St George, and also benefits from being a St Georgian, but she will be handicapped by the late start to her campaign and the fact that Mr Swan and Ms Davis have been campaigning for months.In any event, this is not a problem Premier Paula Cox needed last week as her campaign got started.Economic woesIf the election is decided on the economy, last week was not a good week for Premier Paula Cox’s claims that it is recovering.First Butterfield Bank announced that it had offered early retirement to 56 employees. To be sure, this is voluntary, and if the employees accept, they will at least keep a proportion of their incomes to spend and invest locally, so it does not count entirely as a job reduction.But the fact that Butterfield feels the need to shave a further 56 jobs means it is still struggling along with the economy. Assuming that each of the employees had payroll costs of salary and benefits borne by the employer totaling around $75,000 (and that is probably conservative), then the bank will save around $3.75 million.The news that Coral Beach Club’s future remains uncertain will have added to nervousness about the economy as well as was the possibility it would be sold for a knockdown price. But the week was capped when Computer City said it was closing with the loss of nine jobs, eight of them Bermudian.The announcement was particularly damaging for Ms Cox and the PLP to have the owners say that the payroll tax hike of 2010 marked a turning point. After that, the company, which had a substantial business to business trade, saw sales drop fast.This puts the lie to Ms Cox and the PLP’s claim that the recession’s impetus is global, and that the PLP’s policies have helped Bermuda avoid the worst of it. If Computer City is right, then the PLP’s ill-thought out payroll tax hike made the recession worse — and put a Made in Bermuda stamp on it.