THE PEOPLE'S National Party (PNP) goes into today's elections ahead of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) in both the Anderson and Stone polls, a circumstance that campaign manager Dr. Paul Robertson has put down to ground work early on.

"I can tell you one thing," Dr. Robertson said, explaining the background work at a press conference at the PNP headquarters in St. Andrew yesterday, "we didn't speak a lot on the radio and call every talk show and that sort of thing." He put the projected lead down to "a lot of on the ground work."

"Part of the challenge was to remind Jamaica of the achievements that have been made over the years and when you look at it they are quite significant," he said.

"Over a year ago we did a baseline study of what public opinion was thinking in regard to a range of matters and then built our strategic plan within the framework of what we had picked up.

"When we said to the country earlier in the year that we had taken the lead," he continued, "a lot of people scoffed".

The pollsters have differed in their predictions over the past few days, with Don Anderson projecting a seven point lead for the PNP but then reporting a surge from the JLP to cut back the lead to four points.

The Stone poll had shown a shock drop in the PNP lead to one point on the weekend but reported a nine point lead for the party yesterday.