After months of feverish election speculation the political parties could be forgiven for taking a breather after the realisation Premier Ewart Brown has effectively foregone the chance to call a summer poll.

Pundits from both camps believe the next likely window is December with the Premier still keen to capitalise on his student following. United Bermuda Party chairman Shawn Crockwell said: "Obviously we don't know but it looks like a summer election is no longer on the cards.

"We feel for various reasons it might even be next year." He said the poll results showing the Opposition ahead for the first time in years and the booing directed at Dr. Brown at a recent Collie Buddz concert in Snorkel Park would have forced a rethink.

"If the Premier is holding true to including students in the election process then a December election could be a possibility when the kids are at home at Christmas break. Otherwise it's anyone's guess."

Some pundits believed the Premier would want the election before the Privy Council gave a ruling on whether the press should continue to be gagged from revealing information from Police files probing corruption at the Bermuda Housing Corporation.

The hearing is set to go ahead on October 29.

But Progressive Labour Party candidate and political pundit Walton Brown said he didn't believe the Premier would want to rush the election before that hearing.

"I don't think the Privy Council ruling will have any impact on any date the Premier selects for the election."

He believes the media would have already picked the most damaging allegations from the BHC files while people should not assume because Bermuda courts had found against the Government then the British courts would do the same.

He said: "I would be very surprised if the Privy Council ruled it appropriate for the contents of a Police file, as a matter of practice, to be released into the public domain."

Mr. Brown said with the summer gone he believed December would be the most likely date.

But Mr. Crockwell said if the Premier was really so confident of his boast that his party would increase its share of seats from 22 to 30 he should have called the election by now.

And he said he couldn't work out why the Premier had not gone earlier this year when the UBP was struggling with leadership problems, claims of racism and messy resignations by senior party figures.

"We were having our own struggles but for whatever reason he didn't call the election.

"Now we have a new leader and we have gone from strength to strength and we are in the best position we have been in the last three years.

"He might regret not calling an election back then."

And he said the UBP, if elected, would do away with the Premier's prerogative to call an election when it suited him and move to fixed-term parliaments.

At the moment the Premier can choose virtually any date as long as an election is held at least every five years and three months.

However Mr. Brown said Bermuda's entire constitution would have to be re-written if the Premier's right to pick a date was abolished.

He said such a move would then end the right of MPs to move a 'no confidence' motion against the Premier and dissolve parliament that way.