party should be the eyes, ears and voice of the people, especially the youth.

Speaking at a National Youth Council forum at the Bermuda College, Charles Jeffers said his party would address issues important to young people like education, crime, housing and employment.

Mr. Jeffers says all this despite the fact that his party has abdicated its place in the coming General Election. The NLP hierarchy has chosen to run its few candidates only in seats where it knows it cannot win and where it also knows it will win only a very small percentage of the vote.

In the past the NLP has contested some marginals. In at least one case, possibly two, the NLP candidate cost the Progressive Labour Party seats by taking away their margin for victory. It seems that the NLP has now decided that it does not want to be "a spoiler''. But when considering that, we must remember that the NLP first received its major support from dissatisfied PLP supporters, later from dissatisfied UBP supporters and based on recent by-election results, it now draws support from neither group.

Mr. Jeffers himself is running in Devonshire South where his vote in a by-election was so small as to be embarrassing. Two candidates are running in the safe PLP seat of Devonshire North and Graeme Outerbridge is running once again in Smith's South which is a safe UBP seat. There was a time when a long-term UBP candidate was so weak in that district that Mr. Outerbridge did quite well with protest votes, but that was not true in the last General Election when his vote fell back.

Support for the NLP seems to be very weak. There is no public call for the party to exist. Mr. Jeffers himself is virtually the only NLP candidate with any public recognition or appreciation and he does not draw sufficient voters to give the NLP the hope of even one seat.

What the NLP now seems to be saying is: "We're running and we are still here but we are not serious about this right now.'' If that is the case, why not pack your bags and leave? The answer seems to be that the NLP hopes the PLP will win the next election and give the fragile structure of the UBP such a shock that the UBP will begin to fall apart. The UBP has always been a rather curious grouping of people.

The UBP is very broad-based, vaguely right wing, financially conservative, socially responsive and pro-integration. But in the workings of the UBP there is very little to link together personalities like Maxwell Burgess and Ann Cartwright DeCouto, never mind the forward thinking Jerome Dill and Trevor Moniz.

Mr. Jeffers and his party must be hoping that if they run only in seats where the race is futile, they will announce that the NLP is still alive but will not seriously offend anyone. Then if their scenario comes true and the PLP wins and the UBP self-destructs, the NLP will be waiting.

But waiting with what? The PLP's leadership, although not all of its supporters, has moved toward the middle ground. Indeed, much of Jennifer Smith's current philosophy mirrors what Gilbert Darrell, Walter Brangman and other PLP dissidents were saying before they were expelled and went on to form the NLP. Unfortunately for the NLP, this has left them without much platform in the current election.

The UBP's secret for success has been financial expertise coupled with a social conscience. The NLP has no means of demonstrating a cohesive philosophy or financial expertise.