Deputy Premier Paula Cox inched a little closer to making a formal challenge to Premier Dr. Ewart Brown on Friday when she again confirmed she plans to be the Country's leader, and that she would seek the leadership of the Progressive Labour Party openly and through the constitution of the party. But she stopped well short of naming a date for any challenge against anyone.

She also publicly confirmed reports that Cabinet Ministers were asked to sign an oath of loyalty to Dr. Brown and said she was the only Minister to add a caveat to the declaration, demanding a free debate in Wednesday's caucus meeting.

Ms Cox is a cautious politician by nature, and one who prefers to lead by consensus and in an open way rather than through, in her words, covert means or stealth.

That helps to explain her strong ratings in the polls, where she is roughly twice as popular as the Premier and pretty much any other politician.

Two other findings in the polls should also give her encouragement; Ms Cox has very low negative ratings, and her appeal is much broader than Dr. Brown's as it is spread much more evenly across racial groups, ages and genders. Dr. Brown's biggest concern should be that he has very high negative ratings, much more so than Ms Cox, Opposition Leader Kim Swan or deputy Opposition Leader Trevor Moniz. That gives Dr. Brown far less room to move up than other leaders, who tend to have larger groups of voters who remain undecided about them.

Dr. Brown's low popularity and high negative ratings should give PLP supporters cause for concern, since the PLP's own popularity remains higher than the Premier's, and only marginally ahead of the UBP's at 40 percent to 37 percent. That suggests that Dr. Brown's unpopularity is dragging the party down. Those PLP MPs and others who are now actively seeking a change in leadership will be especially concerned about that possibility. And it is worth remembering that Dr. Brown used polls showing that he was more popular than former Premier Alex Scott to prove his electability.

Still, if Ms Cox is planning a challenge in the near term, she needs to take care not to hedge her bets too carefully.

She has been criticized in recent weeks for not ensuring that Bermuda had signed enough tax information exchange agreements in the last few years to avoid being "grey-listed" by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, but if the agreements now in train are signed before the autumn when the list is to be reviewed, it will be difficult to complain.

What is more complicated is her overall handling of the economy and Government finances. She has been criticised for allowing Government spending to rise faster than inflation, and the widespread concerns about wasteful spending may still come to haunt her.

Some of Ms Cox's popularity stems from the fact that she has been relatively quiet and has not taken contentious positions, but that can backfire if she is seen to have failed to oppose spending programmes, or in ensuring financial accountability.

Now that the wording of the "loyalty oath" signed by Cabinet Ministers has been made public, it appears that Ms Cox was quite clever in her addition of a caveat prior to last Wednesday's PLP caucus.

The statement, which was never made public although it reads as if that was the original intention, would have locked Ministers into support for the Premier before the caucus took place.

It is worth noting that Cabinet Ministers already sign an oath to uphold the Constitution and laws of the Island. It is implicit that they serve at the Premier's pleasure and can be fired by him or her. But a Minister's loyalty is not to one person, but to the Cabinet as a whole under the principle of collective responsibility. The Premier is first among equals in the Cabinet, but he can be outnumbered and serving in the Cabinet should not preclude a Minister's right to express unhappiness about the leadership of the Government.

By demanding that MPs would still have the right to speak their minds at Wednesday's caucus, Ms Cox maintained their right to differ, but did so in such a way that she was able to enhance her position in Government.