Politicians should regard their constituents as bosses and expect to be fired if they fail to do the job, an independent candidate in the General Election has said.

Suzie Arruda, who is standing in Pembroke West (Constituency 19), criticised the Progressive Labour Party for becoming complacent when in office, and said the One Bermuda Alliance had repeatedly failed to offer the electorate a viable alternative.

She said: “If I’m elected and, at the end of that election cycle, voters don’t think I’ve done the job that I’m supposed to be doing for them, get rid of me. Hold me accountable.

“I’m not going to be a politician who comes crawling on their knees saying ‘elect me again because I need a job’ — no, we need the best people in government to run Bermuda.

“If someone else is going to do a better job then me, then put them there, because this is not about me having a position in government or having an ego — this is about Bermuda.

“If I’m not the one who’s representing you best, hold me accountable by kicking me out. Case closed. That’s all there is to it.”

Ms Arruda is one of 27 independent candidates running in the election on February 18.

Asked why she had decided to enter politics for the first time, she said that she was earlier deterred because of the political party system.

However, when former premier Sir John Swan stood as an independent candidate in the Smith’s North by-election in May 2024, “that started the wheels turning”.

Ms Arruda, who works for Sir John’s property development company the Swan Group, said: “I was probably like a lot of people who didn’t think it was something to get involved in or didn’t see a road to how they could get involved.

“When Sir John Swan ran as an independent candidate in Constituency 10, I think that started the wheels turning, not just for myself but for a lot of people.

“We saw an avenue where we could run and make an impact in the community but not be bogged down by party politics or having to toe the party line — I think that’s what had discouraged people from entering politics.

“I’m a person who’s an independent thinker. I want to get things done and I don’t think the party system would allow me to do that so I just shied away from it — until this option of running as an independent came up.”

Although she works full time, Ms Arruda has spent afternoons and Saturdays canvassing the constituency where she is up against Jaché Adams of the PLP and Marcus Jones of the OBA.

In the October 2020 General Election Mr Adams beat Mr Jones by 368 votes to 307, with LeYoni Junos, then a Free Democratic Movement contender, picking up 39 votes.

Ms Arruda said: “I’m working my way through the constituency.

“I do have a full-time job, but I’m lucky that everyone in the office is supporting my candidacy.

“I come in in the mornings, do what I have to do, and in the afternoons I have been hitting the constituency. Every afternoon during the week and on Saturdays, you’ll find me there.”

Ms Arruda said that she had received a positive reaction on the doorstep, but added: “Let’s be honest, I’m sure some people are being polite. But the majority of the feedback has been very refreshing.

“People are glad that they have a choice — a different choice. They don’t want to elect the same politicians back into the same positions and have them do nothing again.

“You can’t do the same thing over and over and expect a different result, and now people have a new opportunity, a fresh choice with fresh ideas.

“I would love to win the seat because the whole point of getting into politics is to make a change.

“Do I have a chance? People say that they’ll vote for you until they get into that booth and have to make a decision, but I have been getting overwhelming support from Constituency 19. People have been great.”

Ms Arruda said she believed the PLP’s 30-6 majority in the last election had resulted in the party’s MPs “becoming very comfortable“.

It was later decreased to 29-7 after Vance Campbell defected from the ruling party to the OBA.

Ms Arruda said: “The PLP have been in power for so long and I don’t think Bermuda has gotten any better, so you have to ask, are they really doing a good job?

“They have a supermajority and they don’t think they need to work.”

She cited collapsing infrastructure and a lack of care for seniors as examples of government failure.

Ms Arruda also suggested that the PLP’s healthy majority had resulted in it treating voters as sheep when in office.

Referring to the Government’s November 2023 announcement that it intended to sign Bermuda up to full Caricom membership, Ms Arruda said: “That was a major decision. People went to bed at night, got up in the morning and found that this decision had been made on their behalf without any consultation.

“How can you throw the country into something when you haven’t asked the people — who are the country — what they think?

“You don’t treat the electorate like sheep. You need to treat them as if you work for them. They are your boss and you can get fired if you don’t do your job.”

Asked for her thoughts on OBA claims that a vote for an independent candidate would be a vote for the PLP, Ms Arruda said: “It’s almost like fearmongering.

“Politics shouldn’t be about fear and you shouldn’t want a representative that’s going to instil fear in you — you want a representative who is going to instil hope in you.

“No person should have a party dictate to them how they vote. Everybody’s an individual and they should vote for whoever best represents them.

“If independent candidates are getting that much attention from the political parties then we must be a major threat.

“I try not to sling dirt and I want to run a clean campaign.

“However, the OBA have had several chances to win an election and they’ve failed point-blank. In 2020 they got just six seats. They failed. So what do they expect us to do — stand aside and let them fail again?

“I’m sorry but they have had their chances and they’ve failed at those chances so we are stepping in and we are going to try and fix that failure.”

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