Well the election is over. And as the saying goes: “The voters have spoken.” Was the outcome what you were expecting? There are two main takeaways from the 2025 General Election. First, the largest vote winner — by a landslide — was the stay-home vote. More than 20,000 Bermudians did not vote.

When Sir John Swan, father of the independent “movement”, shared with us his post-election assessment, he reached for the word “apathy”. An astounding 45 per cent of Bermudians decided not to vote at all.

So my first takeaway: 2025 was “The Apathy Election”.

Five years ago, just after the 2020 election, I pointed out that “Did Note Vote” was the true winner. That was dramatic when, historically, Bermudians used to vote with high turnouts. This time, “Did Not Vote” won again — but by a greater proportion.

The second main takeaway from last week’s election is this: more Bermudians voted against the Progressive Labour Party than those who voted to elect the party. This was illustrated by a humorous cartoon in the daily showing 12,479 Bermudians voting against the PLP, with only 12,300 voting to return it to power.

Although the cartoon was funny, this is no laughing matter. The PLP may have survived the 2025 election, but David Burt, the Premier, did so with less than 50 per cent of the popular vote. This outcome undermines the Government’s legitimacy. The new Burt Administration lacks any mandate of majority support. Mr Burt’s personal authority is also badly shaken, as the media are already speculating who will succeed him. Will the Premier make it to the PLP’s next internal election?

First past the post

Of course, Bermuda’s electoral system does not apply the popular vote. Our Westminster system allocates House seats like a horse race: each winner is the one “first past the post”.

Proportionally, the 2025 election ratio was, roughly, 4:3:1 — which is 4 for the PLP, 3 for the One Bermuda Alliance and 1 for all the rest. Proportionally, the House of Assembly seats would be 20-15-1. Yet when Parliament returns, the elected MPs will apportion PLP 25 and OBA 11. Such are the unpredictable actions of the Westminster system.

Independents, Marc Bean and apathy

During the election campaign, the OBA contended that any vote for independent candidates risked returning the PLP to power. The results have shown this to be true. Yes, the OBA increased our MPs from only six seats in 2020, to 11 MPs this time round. Additionally, there were also several seats where the independent or third-party candidate — or both — served as “spoilers”, causing a PLP victory in that constituency.

Yet no independent or third-party candidate really came close to winning any seat. Among the independents, Ci’re Bean in Constituency 36 came closest with 168 votes. Free Democratic Movement leader Marc Bean secured 225 votes, but still lagged about 100 votes behind his PLP opponent, Scott Simmons. This is now Mr Bean’s third election loss. Although collectively independent candidates received only approximately 2,000 votes, this was more than double the FDM’s total votes of 949.

The conclusion is this: the yield from the “independent experiment” was, substantially, to return David Burt and his PLP party to power. Was that what you were expecting?

Conventional wisdom suggests that an increase in the number of candidates should cause an increase in the number of voters who cast their vote. Yet the reverse actually happened. Voters stayed home more than ever before. And the PLP limped past the post without securing a majority mandate.

This decline in voters cannot be a good thing. There is a saying in politics: “The voters are never wrong.” Yet if we choose not to vote, then how will our leaders know what the people want? True, the voters are never wrong. Yet accountability is also a two-way street.

And I trust all of us can agree this: apathy solves nothing.

• Scott Pearman is the One Bermuda Alliance MP for Paget East (Constituency 22) and previously served as Shadow Minister of Home Affairs and Legal Affairs. He can be reached at spearman@oba.bm