Jamaica's youngest prime minister is battling to keep the ruling party in power Thursday in a closely contested general election.Whoever wins Thursday's election will face significant hurdles to rebuild a tourism-dependent economy that has failed to grow over the past four years and been hit hard by economic troubles in the United States and Europe.
It is expected to be a close election battle between Jamaica's two parties, the ruling Jamaica Labor Party, or JLP, led by Holness, and the opposition People's National Party, known as the PNP, headed by Portia Simpson-Miller
Jamaica's debt load stands at more than 120 percent of gross domestic product, with debt payments gobbling up nearly half of the country's budget and leaving dwindling resources to pay government workers and fund schools and hospitals. Jamaica's jobless rate has risen to 12.9 percent, and the economy shrank just over 1 percent last year.