MANDEVILLE, Manchester:

It was a packed Golf View Hotel auditorium, and a generally respectful audience, that facilitated Prime Minister Bruce Golding's first town-hall meeting in Mandeville on Tuesday night.

This, despite a boycott from the local Manchester People's National Party fraternity, including members of parliament and the respective parish council officials.

There was only a sprinkling of green-clad party faithful among the more than 1,000 seated citizens, but there was little doubt that the majority might have been partisan, judging from the heckling a few persons got when they asked questions that seemed to criticise the Government's tax measures. None more notable than the first speaker, a mother of two who cited the imposition of GCT on salt which, in her view, was testimony the "Government nuh care how poor people a guh manage now".

Following her personal pleas for assistance for her children, Golding instructed his assistants to take her personal information.

Even with the cheers and boos, signalling support for Golding, the prime minister stressed that the meetings were not politically motivated.

Daryl Vaz, minister with respon-sibility for information and telecommunications, said similar-styled meetings would soon take place in 4, St Ann and St James.