A sobering reality check

Soon after the PLP’s 1998 election victory, a friend of mine quite calmly stated that much like a pendulum needle swinging from one side to the other, Bermuda will swing away from decades of unfair UBP leadership over to the PLP’s version of unfair leadership. Only after that swing would there be potential for the needle to swing back towards the middle, a fairer and more just society for all.

I disagreed with his analogy, as it was my belief that there was no reason why the PLP couldn’t be a fair/just government from the start.  Nevertheless, around halfway through the PLP’s very first term, friends who had once been staunch supporters of the PLP were making bitter claims that we have a Bermudian version of Animal Farm.  

Ultimately, voters are to blame for what happened, because we let fear, guilt and party loyalty, stop us from holding the PLP accountable as we should have. Fourteen years later we have a new Government, and unfortunately both political parties appear to be suffering from post-election hangovers.

So the critical question now becomes, will we let the needle swing back to the OBA’s version of unjust, or will we exercise vigilance and hold our politicians accountable?

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OBA giddily made promises but woke up with amnesia

I can think of no better way to comment on the OBA’s first six months than to reflect upon their pre-election platform and specifically, their Jobs and Economic Recovery Plan.  Starting with the very first page we find:

“Since 2004 — long before the global recession started—the Government has lived beyond its means, spending tens of millions of dollars on lavish overseas trips, hundreds of cars with GP licence plates and overpaid consultants who under deliver. All of these excesses have been paid for by you, the taxpayer.  While it’s evident that they should have been saving during the good times to tide us over during the bad, unfortunately they did not.”

Isn’t it ironic that within the very first week of office, the OBA was forced to explain the hiring of a consultant (one who was allegedly linked to their election campaign)? And considering how soon the hiring took place, it seems highly unlikely that the OBA reviewed the Civil Service for an available resource. In the wake of the controversial hiring, we were advised that all future consultants would be approved by the Premier.  But that provided little comfort, because it didn’t explain how the hiring occurred in the first place.  Further, the Premier’s statement rings hollow as we subsequently have learned about the hiring of two more OBA-aligned ‘consultants’.

“Create an Office of the Contractor General, independent of Government, to oversee Government projects from tendering to completion, to ensure that policies are strictly enforced and to identify unfair practices or offensive conduct… Insist upon financial accountability in the civil service, ensuring that budgets are strictly adhered to.”

Recently the PLP proposed that all contracts in excess of $50,000 be brought before the House of Assembly. According to news reports, for some inexplicable reason the OBA had the wording changed from “should be brought” to “may be brought”. To the layperson it appears that they could’ve strengthened the wording by changing it to “must be brought,” but it appears that they’ve weakened it instead. After repeatedly condemning the PLP over cronyism, nepotism and poor financial management, you might expect that the OBA would have sought to improve upon the PLP’s proposal. Several words spring to mind: hypocritical, reprehensible and appalling. 

“Implement welcoming policies in partnership with the Corporation of Hamilton that stimulate foreign investment in Hamilton, particularly on waterfront redevelopment, thereby boosting tourism and generating jobs.   ...we will create jobs by attracting foreign investors to partner with us to develop the Hamilton and St. George’s waterfronts...”

Six months have passed since we learned that the CoH struck their own deal.  If anything, recent reports imply that the Corporation is pressing ahead without stopping to get full buy-in from the Government.  This is simply unacceptable, because the entire country’s future is very much hung in the balance with the redevelopment of the Hamilton waterfront. I must therefore ask, what (if anything) have the Premier and Minister of Economic Development been doing to address the Corporation’s plans to decide our collective fate?  

“Unfortunately, public education reform — as recommended in the Hopkins Report — has been extraordinarily slow, and the lack of an integrated technical curriculum in our public education system has meant that a lot of young Bermudian talent has been needlessly frustrated. This threatens Bermuda’s future economic success.”

There really isn’t a whole lot to say here, because the OBA has said so little about reforming the education system. It’s pretty clear that the OBA has inherited an incredible challenge from the PLP, but shouldn’t public education be one of their critical priorities? If it is then what, if any, kind of reform can we expect to see this year? Enough with the lip-service on economic equality!

Teething pains are expected with a new Government. No one is realistically expecting them to create 2,000 jobs within six months, but on the issues mentioned above it’s beginning to feel like the OBA got incredibly drunk on a Friday night before making multiple election-winning promises. Now it’s the morning after, and they’re behaving as if they’ve completely forgotten what they pledged to do to help us the night before.

PLP’s like the drunk brawler who blames everyone else 

The morning after has been understandably difficult for the PLP. They didn’t just lose the election, they also lost their party leader. In the first quarter of the year, they had to deal with a resignation, an effective resignation and the threat of further resignations. 

Not only do they have to deal with a new party leader, they also have to deal with the idea that many of those who got elected are considered to be partly to blame for why the party lost. Most importantly, there is the need to face up to what they failed to accomplish after the long-fought removal of the UBP.

No, it can’t be easy for them. But I don’t think that it has to be as regressive as it has been thus far. For example, starting in January the PLP seemed hellbent on convincing the electorate that the world was going to end due to the removal of term limits, and that the OBA had insulted Bermudians with their use of the word “xenophobia.” The PLP knew the difference between work permits and term limits. 

Xenophobia 

They also must have known that in July of 2012 one of their newly-elected MPs declared, “With social media, people for some reason seem to have a greater penchant for descending into the personal attack — with a plethora of irrelevant, racist, misogynist, xenophobic utterances.” Apparently ‘xenophobic’ is only offensive when the OBA uses it!  

Whereas the PLP could have tried to calm the waters, instead they doubled down on the rhetoric with their comments about, “the demonic, Harry Potter One Bermuda Alliance.” 

In one fell swoop they branded the new government as evil, insulted voters by implying that they fell for an evil, “institution built upon the principles of fraud, of deceit, of lies” and gave already-angry protesters even more reason to march in protest against the new Government. 

Only four months later, hardly a word is spoken about the perils of removing term limits or the alleged OBA insults. 

The present silence really makes me wonder what the PLP was trying to achieve during the first few months in Opposition.  

In April, the PLP appeared penitent for a moment: “We lost on December 17th, but we had lost touch, lost our way and lost our connection to the people long before that historic date with destiny.” 

But this was contradicted merely weeks later with: “The election should have been called earlier in order to avoid sending the Bermudian electorate to the polls during the worst headwinds of the current recession, and to take advantage of the then disarray and disunity within the opposition ranks.” 

Blaming the election loss on poor timing soon after begging for forgiveness seems like an Oscar-worthy case of crocodile tears to me.

Mind-numbing hypocrisy

Finally, out of all the mind-numbing things the PLP has done thus far, the singular issue that truly brings their integrity into question is their hypocritical support of discrimination against homosexuals. 

If one considers the significant leadership roles that multiple homosexuals have held during 14 years of PLP government, one would think that if there was any political party that would support the Human Rights Amendment Act 2013 it would be the PLP. 

Ironically, the bill did not get unanimous support from PLP MPs, and it’s been recently reported that the new party leader stated: “Historically if you look at the gay rights agenda, at who created it and who financed it, then you will recognise that its purpose is to turn civilisation upside down and upon its head.” 

Wow! Surely, if such people pose so great a threat to civilization you’d have nothing to do with them at all!  Isn’t it completely illogical and blatantly reprehensible of them to defend homophobia?

To its own detriment, the PLP seems angry and uncertain as it continues to show signs of convenient, political fundamentalism. That is, it’s been taking hard stances on issues that they don’t appear to really believe in. 

Overall, their first six months reminds me of someone who had way too much to drink, started a bar fight, took a beating, and the next day wants to blame everyone else for losing their wallet.