ANTONNETTE Haughton-Cardenas, President of the fledgling United People's Party (UPP), yesterday vowed her party would contest the upcoming general election despite what she said were efforts by the Electoral Advisory Committee (EAC) and the Electoral Office of Jamaica (EOJ) to frustrate it.

Her comments to The Gleaner last night followed a meeting with representatives of the two electoral bodies who are insisting that she will have to re-submit a petition with 50,000 signatures to qualify for government-paid scrutineers.

The UPP, like the National Democratic Movement (NDM) in 1996, is required to provide a petition with 50,000 signatures before it can be given the right to appoint election scrutineers for voter registration.

Having this recognition from the EAC would also allow the party to satisfy Ministry of Finance requirements for it to import 25 duty-free motor vehicles for election campaigning.

Mrs. Haughton-Cardenas said she was told to speak with Finance Minister Dr. Omar Davies on that matter.

In terms of the signatures, Mrs Haughton-Cardenas said the EAC had a problem with 10,000 signatures "which they said looked suspicious to them". This was after a handwriting expert was called in to examine the signatures.

Undaunted, the UPP President said: "We are going to contest these elections and when we win a seat in the House then they must in law treat with us, signature or no signature. That is our intent".

Stating that the UPP had a constitutional right to contest the elections, Mrs Haughton-Cardenas lashed out at the leadership of the EAC and EOJ.

She said: "These men are gatekeepers for the two-party system. They are gatekeepers and they are keeping out the broadening of the democracy."