Most PLP supporters want Lovitta Foggo to represent them in St. David's — not reported frontrunner Sean Tucker, according to polls shown to The Royal Gazette.

The PLP candidate committee is expected to make a decision tonight on who will run in the marginal seat. Media reports said that Sean Tucker — a competition winner for the Voice of Bermuda — won the nomination over branch chairwoman Lovitta Foggo in late April.

But according to Research Innovations polls shown to The Royal Gazette 73.9 percent of PLP supporters backed Mrs. Foggo while only 13.4 percent wanted Mr. Tucker to represent them. Meanwhile, 10.4 percent of the people polled said they did not know who they would prefer and 2.2 percent refused to answer the question. The polls also showed that among the constituents surveyed — both PLP and UBP supporters — Mrs. Foggo would fare better in the election against United Bermuda Party MP Suzann Roberts Holshouser than Mr. Tucker would.

For the PLP the seat is an important one — Mrs. Holshouser won it by only 15 votes in the last election.

The polls were shown to this newspaper by a PLP source, who does not live in St. David's but supports the party. She said Mrs. Foggo was well known in her constituency.

She added that the polls were the "scientific" results that Premier Dr. Ewart Brown has promoted and expected to see Mrs. Foggo named as the PLP candidate.

This year the PLP has unveiled a new way of selecting candidates. Once they have received the backing from their branch they are also required to get approval from a five-person candidates committee — who use the phone polls to assess the popularity of potential choices — and also the central committee.

Dr. Brown has said that the polling will cancel out "aberrations" in the candidate selection process

In a press release issued shortly after the PLP Southampton West constituency branch rejected sitting candidate Randy Horton for Marc Bean Dr. Brown said: "The Bermuda Progressive Labour Party is moving party politics to another level and, through independent polling, we are deepening the democratic process in selecting our candidates for the next General Election.

"As a prelude to who will be their ultimate choices to represent them in Parliament, the PLP is involving constituents at large in determining who will be their initial choices as their Party's candidates."

He also said the polling would prevent "power brokers" from calling "the shots on who should lead, who should follow, and who should be the party's election candidates".