"Don't stop the progress," was the popular and catchy campaign slogan for the People's National Party (PNP) in the run-up to the 2007 general election. "Send them a message that enough is enough," was the Jamaica Labour Party's (JLP) response.

Now, in a complete reversal of roles, the parties have taken over each other's 2007 mantra as the campaigning in the West Portland by-election race intensifies.

Irony not lost

With both parties focusing their strategy on house-to-house campaigning, the irony has not been lost on voters, many of whom have been finding the twist comical.

"I couldn't believe what I was hearing the other day when James Robertson, Bobby Montague and a number of other JLP officials came knocking on my door, Byron Campbell, a 54-year-old labourer of Hope Bay, commented.

"They kept repeating the phrase, 'Don't stop the progress' to the point where I had to ask them if they were now running the PNP campaign."

Natalie Shirley, a 35-year-old hairdresser of neighbouring St Margaret's Bay, said she too found the change in campaign rhetoric quite amusing.

"There is nothing stranger in life than politics," she noted.

"Nearly two years ago, we were being asked by the PNP not to stop the progress. Today, they are telling us to send the Government a message that enough is enough. The JLP, on the other hand, is telling us not to do anything to stop the progress, this is truly funny."

No surprise

Doreen Thomas, a 63-year-old returning resident of Mount Pleasant, said it should come as no surprise that the JLP would be urging voters not to stop the progress, considering the amount of money that had been spent in the constituency.

"I just wish there was a by-election every week," she commented.

Prime Minister Bruce Golding, in a campaign stop last week in St Margaret's Bay, told supporters that the JLP would be using the "don't stop the progress phrase" to highlight Vaz's achievements over the last 18 months.

"When Sister P (a reference to Opposition Leader Portia Simpson Miller) comes knocking at your doors as I suspect she will, just tell her you are not going to stop the progress," he said. "Use their very words against them."

The PNP, however, seems untroubled by the JLP's adoption of its 2007 slogan and has been stepping up its campaign rhetoric with an all-out assault on the Golding administration.

Dr Peter Phillips said: "This is a government that cannot manage the country and we must send them a message that enough is enough."