While anything is possible in politics, it seems pretty certain now that the United Bermuda Party and the Bermuda Democratic Alliance will join forces within the next few weeks.In practical terms, this is sensible. The risk with any divided opposition in the Westminster system is that they will split their vote and allow the party in power to win a parliamentary landslide, even if its share of the overall vote did not change.That is what happened in the 1980s in the UK when Margaret Thatcher’s Conservatives won big majorities without winning a majority of the national vote. And it happened to some degree in 1985 when John Swan’s UBP romped to victory over the Progressive Labour Party and the National Liberal Party.In the event of an election taking place this year, which is still quite possible, the UBP and the BDA faced that likelihood, even with polls giving them a combined vote that exceeded that of the PLP.So this merger should ensure that a single opposition party will get a respectable result.What it does not do is make gaining power which is the point of forming any political party any more realistic on its own.It will not be forgotten that the parliamentary group that will sit down together again in mid-May is more or less the same parliamentary group that was elected in 2007.What the One Bermuda Alliance, if that ends up being its name, must do is show that it is in fact a new entity and not the “United Bermuda Party” under a new name.Although the BDA ultimately failed to gain traction, it did succeed in attracting people to it who liked the idea of a new way of doing politics and who would never have voted for the UBP.If the OBA (1BA?) is to be successful, it has to retain those newcomers and attract more, and especially young Bermudians, which essentially means under 50.It also needs to produce a list of credible and serious political candidates; people who have a proven track record in their fields (which does not have to be, and perhaps should not be, political) and are willing to bring new ideas and approaches to the table.That’s because the UBP probably produced better and more thoughtful platforms in 2003 and 2007, but failed to produce candidates who could match up with the PLP’s.There is still a yearning for a new way of governing Bermuda, and a recognition that the Westminster system, for all its brutal effectiveness, does not work well in small communities.Both the UBP and the BDA have tried to emphasise the idea that they represent an integrated community, regardless of race or background. The UBP has failed to overcome the perception that the old white establishment was pulling the strings behind the scenes or that its goal was to maintain the economic dominance of that group. To the degree that this was ever true, it’s a fallacy now, but the perception is permanent.To succeed, the OBA must separate itself from that idea entirely, perferably through some definitive break with the past.Despite the upsurge in crime and the recession (which, ironically, has done more to equalise incomes between blacks and whites than any government policy) the wealth gap between blacks and whites in Bermuda remains the single major issue facing the Island.The UBP recognised that in the lead-up to the 2003 election when it was making more of the running on racial empowerment than the PLP then, or, to some extent, now. But it fell short, perhaps because it could not convince people it was serious, and in part because of the PLP’s now traditional negative campaigning in the last days of the campaign.Nonetheless, the OBA must do something similar now and mean it if it wants to win an election, and more importantly, bring about genuine change to Bermuda.