It is more than a bit rich

It is more than a bit rich for the Prime Minister to muse where Labour are getting funds for their billboards.

It does not look as if the PN have any billboard disadvantage.  So the Prime Minister may be wondering why Labour are punching as much as the PN, at least in so far as billboards go.

It is even richer for the Prime Minister to promise to pass legislation about the funding of political parties when for the last two decades they only paid lip service to the need to bring under control the jungle which exists in this field which is well and truly a democratic deficit, where the rich gain access to the quarters of power which are denied to the poor.

What the Prime Minister should explain  is why he chose to go for an election campaign of 61 days rather than the 33 days that we have grown used to since 1992.   Without a budget for 2013 and with government forced to resign against its wishes, there was every reason to go for the shortest possible election campaign allowed by the Constitution.   This is more so considering that the start of the election campaign has to be postponed till after the Christmas festivities,  thus spending another 4 weeks in limbo.

Campaigns of 61 days and 28 days of limbo cost more than twice than straight electoral campaigns of  the minimum 33 days.

So by all logic to avoid further complication to the funding of political parties,  the Prime Minister should have gone for the shortest campaign possible.

But the PN's interest are served better by a long campaign.   They need as much time as possible to try to change their fortunes at the polls.   And they stand a better chance of succeeding if they asphyxiate the Opposition out of funds in the latter part of an extended campaign.   The PN have never had any problems of funding and the least of their problems if finding generous donors who get selected for contracts from yellow pages to fund an extended election campaign.

Yet again the Prime Minister, in choosing the date for the general elections, has put the interest of the PN before the interest of the nation.