Local Talk Show Host Claude Skelton Cline believes that it will be a sprint to the finish once elections are called in the Virgin Islands, mainly due to the territory’s main political parties lacking the necessary financial backing to fund a long election.
“Neither of the two major parties have any money… Neither the NDP nor the Virgin Islands Party have any money, and it takes money to run long elections, to run elections period”, he said.
Cline went on to explain that beyond the lack of existing internal funding, he believes that chances of parties receiving funding from private donors at any significant level is unlikely.
“Ain’t nobody with money that’s prepared to give them their money because they don’t believe in the leadership of these parties they are currently constructed”, he remarked.
“In this current economic climate, it further exacerbates and makes more pronounced what I’m giving utterance to as to why I believe this election will be run around March and why it’s going to be a sprint to the finish line”, he added.
This, he noted, also emphasises why a by-election in the First District is not necessary.
“There is no need to have a byelection given the proximity, the closeness, the timeline for when a general election is due. Just the sheer cost of it, the logistics of it becomes a challenge all by itself to have people run now in the first district and then run 3 months from now”, he said.