Dear Sir,

One of the more prolific contributors to the Opinion section opined of the need for the Opposition (One Bermuda Alliance) to perhaps call it a day. This is fast on the heels of the same opinion writer’s suggestion that perhaps the Progressive Labour Party has lost all relevance with Bermuda’s body politic. (Royal Gazette, February 22, 2023).

Depending on one’s affiliation, the same writer could be easily considered either a genius or indeed another disgruntled political soothsayer. Either way, it is easy to see how such patterns of thought — and writings — could be formulated. If you take as the basis of these thoughts and outcomes as opposed to the intention of the voters, then you will easily attribute the wrong hypothesis as you attempt to establish why the results are as miserable as they appear.

Mr Editor, the PLP did not win 30 seats, nor did the Opposition win six seats of their own accord. It was an outcome of the wishes of those who participated in our democratic process of voting — indeed, the election of 36 persons. The assumption being that each of the victorious persons represented to the voter the best of which they had to pick from. The additional baggage of party affiliation, personal integrity or not, qualifying abilities or not, clearly came secondary.

The splitting of the 36 into respective camps was a function of a process as outlined within our constitution. The resultant breakdown of size was purely mathematics in results. If the Government has angst with an Opposition, it can form its own and in the not so distant past has. So the need to determine relevancy or termination as a basis for existence is aiming at the symptom and not the cause.

Opining one to be irrelevant and the other ineffective, what, if any, solutions are being offered? Is it that the voter should be more aware of their collective actions and outcomes? If size was the precursor for existence, there would be no PLP today. The results of October 1985 still ring in the minds of many serving in government today.

Is there a better system for which we are all so blissfully unaware that would change the status quo? Sir Winston Churchill is credited with making the observation of others and wrote “... democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

DAVID J. SULLIVAN

Paget