The most amazing thing about this election is that everyone - both the PLP and the UBP - seems surprised by the outcome. It really does appear that policy and performance take second fiddle to party affiliation.
This election has left a large part of the community (48% to be exact) wondering where they fit in. Time to start rebuilding those bridges, again.
The sentiment I’ve heard from many of my otherwise thrilled PLP friends is that they wished it had been closer in order to keep pressure on their party to reform and stay fair. Partly from Breezeblog, following are comments from today’s exhausted papers.
“It is convenient to maintain the fiction that public life in Bermuda is a battle between black and white, good and evil, especially when that division guarantees you a substantial electoral majority. But it perpetuates racial stereotypes, exacerbates racial divisions, and allows the PLP Government to dismiss any and all criticism on the pretext that it is racially based. It is, furthermore, fundamentally dangerous to democracy to have a Government that believes itself inherently superior and inherently right, and its critics inherently wrong. That is the surest way of justifying any number of lies and abuses, or failure to respond to questions of any kind - and in this election campaign, this is exactly what the PLP was doing.”
“The prime task now facing the election victor is healing the community psyche from the bruising it has taken during this election. The PLP must now resist all temptation to humiliate, ridicule or otherwise behave in an uncivil fashion toward UBP leaders and supporters. Furthermore, PLP leaders must now make significant healing gestures, across racial and party lines. These cannot be mere lip service; neither can they be superficial nor just for the moment.”
“This new PLP Parliamentary group, unless checked by Parliamentary process and Constitutional safeguards, may show an even greater tendency to try to enhance, by regulation and legislation, what it seems to see as the lesser position - in Bermuda - of black Bermudians. In the neutral world of everyday business and normal social relations, this kind of philosophical and economic value shift, though acceptable to core PLP supporters, is likely to increase the level of irritation and complication already being experienced by some members of Bermuda’s highly mobile International Business community.”
“To some extent, this result also seems to vindicate the PLP’s approach to this political campaign, which will be remembered as the nastiest in living memory. And it cannot be disputed that the Island is as divided as ever. That’s too bad on both counts, because now, more than ever, Bermuda needs a leader who can unite the Country. It is not at all clear that that man is Dr. Brown, in spite of his call for the healing to begin after the election.”