But as the "honourables" said repeatedly, it's not political - except that, everything is political. So, we wondered, is the four million dollar Conditional Cash Transfer Programme, the 2.4 million dollar Food Pantry Program, the $5 million dollars for Child Care Initiatives and $4.4 million for countrywide Home Improvements and Home Repair which are all set to roll out this year - are all those pro-poor initiatives building up to an election�.possibly an early election in 2012? Here's what the Prime Minister had to say:�

Jules Vasquez
"Are you preparing or positioning your party for an early election perhaps right after the municipals' next year?"

Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"No I don't think so. As things now stand I expect to go the full term because there is a lot of work still to be done. We believe we will require the entire length of the period given to us constitutionally."

Jules Vasquez
"How will the conditional cash transfer? How will that factor in with this same type of program and might that end up being used for electioneering?"

Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"Again no because these are bread and butter programs for us that we genuinely believe in and we mean to push forward with this programs. It has nothing to do with politics; it really is a matter of psychological conviction."

Jules Vasquez
"How does the grant from the Russian Federation factor into this. What is the status of that? It's not been publicly announce?"

Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister

"It hasn't come yet. We are pretty confident that the money will come. The Russians had sent a team down here and had said to us that the money is pre-approve, so it's just a matter of working out with them the programs to which the funds will flow."

Jules Vasquez "Do you know what is their strategic interest?"

Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"The officials that came to discuss the details of the grant met with Sir Manuel Esquivel in my absence, I was out of the country at the time and what Sir Manuel got from the meeting was that the Russians certainly are looking to spread their diplomatic wings once again since the fall of the Soviet Empire and now the transition to just the Russian Federation. I believe there is a program where their foreign policy wings have not have the breath that it certainly use to have when they were an empire. We get the sense that they want to show a particular interest in this side of the world."

The Prime Minister says he expects the Russian money to arrive in two months. He will visit Moscow in June. The money has been programmed for rural electrification and support for small farmers.

Channel 7