JAN 10

The ruling New National Party (NNP) of Prime Minister Dr. Keith Mitchell choose to refer to them as the "Ball heads" that need to be chased out of town.

This was reference during the November 27 General Election to Peter David and Nazim Burke, two of the candidates selected by the main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) to contest the poll.

The NNP was prepared to spend as much as was possible to keep out the two former revolutionary figures of the 1979-83 Grenada Revolution from winning seats in the election and entering the halls of parliament. In the finals hours of the campaign, the NNP took out a spate of advertising spots on local television networks urging the electorate to vote massively against 'the ball heads' who were seeking to get into parliament.

However, David managed to unseat the Minister of Civil Aviation and Tourism, Brenda Hood in a keenly contested battle for the Town of St. George Constituency while Burke defeated Education Minister Augustine John to capture the St. George North-east seat.

David had served in the revolutionary period as a Junior Minister in the Ministry of Information and Burke with the Ministry of Finance and Trade under imprisoned former deputy Prime Minister Bernard Coard.

The two had left the island after the collapse of the Grenada Revolution and travelled to North America to take up legal studies before returning home as qualified barristers-at-law.

The decision of Burke and David to join the ranks of the NDC as part of its re-organisation in the aftermath of the 1999 general election when the NNP won all fifteen seats helped to propel the congress party to become the leading opposition force in the country.

When parliament opens on Friday, the NDC will have seven members sitting on the Opposition benches including the two so-called 'ball heads' while Dr. Mitchell's NNP will have only eight to enjoy a slender one-seat margin in the Lower House.