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I can tell you right now that you don't know who you're voting for.

You only think you do.

The papers and TV stations this week carried items about the popularity of our two leaders...

It's Brown versus Dunkley, in the polls, in the papers, and in the popular imagination.

Our leaders are supposedly members of a team - "first among equals" but nothing much more than that - but we know that's really not true anymore. A premier is a lot more like a president than he used to be.

The premier is the guy who calls the shots. He appoints Cabinet ministers and fires them too, so they usually toe the line.

A premier's power is stronger than ever, these days, because more MPs depend on the income and the career advancement that a premier can give them. Not many MPs are amateurs anymore. It's hard to challenge your boss if you can't afford to walk away.

The premier is especially strong when he's more popular or more charismatic than his party. You saw that with the UBP's Sir John Swan, in his heyday, and you saw that in the brief early days of Dr. Ewart Brown's regime.

There's a price to pay, of course, when the leader becomes LESS popular than his party. He's still out there, beaming down from official portraits and all over the election campaign literature, dragging the rest of his party down.

Then party members will be back-peddling, to be sure, insisting that the leader who would carry them to glory is now, in fact, just one player on a good and solid team.

Too late?

But it's usually too late. For most voters, in most constituencies, the leader represents the party. When they go to the polls to place their mark beside the name (and now the beautiful photo) of Joe Nobody MP JP, they're really voting for Dr. Brown or Mr. Dunkley.

People are choosing between a Brown Government or a Dunkley Government. At least they think they are, but the fact is they're completely wrong.

They don't have any idea who they're voting for, because they have no idea who will lead the Government they vote in.

The leader who wins this election may not, in fact, be available to serve.

Recent history shows that the odds are against either of the leaders we vote for actually being our leaders for very long.

Voters chose Sir John Swan, the last time they elected a UBP Government, but what they actually got was Sir John Swan followed by Dr. David Saul, followed by Pamela Gordon.

Voters chose Jennifer Smith, the last time they elected a UBP Government, but what they actually got was Jennifer Smith followed by Alex Scott, followed by Dr. Ewart Brown.

In this election, the odds are stronger than ever that we won't get who we vote for. Win or lose, Dr. Brown will almost certainly be deposed - if he doesn't step down of his own accord - soon after the election.

He has managed to irritate and offend so many of his own colleagues, who blame him for squandering a comfortable lead over the UBP, that he would have to produce a victory of unlikely proportions to survive.

Dr. Brown himself acknowledged that the knives were already drawn when he e-mailed his colleagues soon after the election was declared, urging them not to challenge him now. There will be time for that, he said, after the election.

Michael Dunkley, of course, has chosen a different technique for putting his leadership in peril.

He is voluntarily abandoning his safe seat in parliament, and is fighting this election in a constituency that last time elected the PLP's Patrice Minors by a comfortable margin.

If the UBP loses the election, Mr. Dunkley will certainly be among the defeated candidates. The party's successful MPs will chose a new leader from amongst themselves.

Like those who voted for Dr. Brown's party, voters who voted for Mr. Dunkley's party will find that their choice, in the end, wasn't even an option.

Even if the UBP wins the election, though, the odds are high that Mr. Dunkley would still lose his own seat and be out of the House of Assembly - and not even eligible to become Premier.

So somebody else - not Dr. Brown and not Mr. Dunkley - would end up leading the country.

The assumption is that the UBP would then try to convince one of its safe-seat winners to step down, and put Mr. Dunkley forward in a by-election.

They've never said they'd do it, though, so who knows what will happen.

The one thing you do know is that a vote for your favourite leader will, almost certainly, be a vote for somebody completely different.[[In-content Ad]]

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