Wayne Furbert, 50, came up the hard way in the United Bermuda Party — starting as boy pounding the streets in Hamilton Parish.

His shock victory in Hamilton West, when he and running mate Maxwell Burgess snatched back a seat off the PLP, kept the UBP in power in 1993 as Government seats tumbled across the Island.

Sir John Swan put him in Cabinet as Community and Cultural Affairs Minister and he served in Transport and Health before losing his seat in the PLP landslide in 1998.

An accountant by trade, Mr. Furbert returned to Parliament in 2003 in the new single-member seat of Hamilton West, winning by 61 votes.

He took over as leader in January 2006 but the recent resignations have seen his popularity plummet with just one in five saying they have a favourable opinion of him in a January poll.

It showed 36 percent of people would vote for the Government while just under 19 percent were backing the UBP.