43 to run in general election
Published:Wednesday | October 26, 2011 | 12:00 AM
TORTOLA (CMC):
The Electoral Office says 43 candidates have been nominated to contest the November 7 general election.
Supervisor of Election Juliette Penn said 43 candidates were nominated on Monday as compared with 40 in 2007.
Premier Ralph O'Neal said he had decided on the election date "after prayers and meditation with the higher power and the one who guides our lives and whom to we try to listen and obey".
O'Neal will lead the incumbent Virgin Islands Party (VIP) into the polls with the main contender being the National Democratic Party (NDP), headed Orlando Smith.
A number of people are contesting the elections as independent candidates, including Preston Stoutt, the son of the island's longest-serving head of government, Lavity Stoutt.
The younger Stoutt will be challenged by Andrew A. Fahie in the First District.
In the 2007 general election, the VIP won seven of the nine districts seats, with the NDP winning one seat and the other going to the independent candidate Alvin Christopher. The victory gave the VIP an unprecedented 10 elected seats out of the 13 available in the House of the British Virgin Islands.