N<$>OW that we have witnessed the historic election of Dr. Ewart Brown to the leadership of the Progressive Labour Party, and thus making him the third PLP Premier to assume the leadership of this country, it is time for a personal reflection of these momentous events.How did I feel on hearing the results of the election and Dr. Brown’s historic victory? I keep referring to it as an historic event, for indeed we have witnessed the passing of the torch of leadership from one generation to the other.

In that context, former Premier Alex Scott has no need to feel dejected over his defeat, for in the great contest as to who will be the next leader of the group, it is one’s legacy that in the end counts.

The former Premier need have no fear in that regard, for it cannot be denied that it was his generation that for the most part struggled and made the sacrifices that took the Progressive Labour Party to the threshold of Government and beyond.

How did I feel when I heard the news of the election of Dr. Brown to the leadership of the PLP?

Well, my daughter was a witness to my reaction. She had never seen her Dad react in such a way as I heard the news over the car radio.

The feeling I had perhaps was equal to my reaction to the birth of my children, first receiving a son and then two daughters.

I can now admit that the feeling was greater than that which I experienced when the PLP first won the Government in 1998. That opinion may seem strange to some knowing that I have been a PLP supporter for most of my life, starting at age 18.

Let me explain. I first began to follow the PLP leading up to and in the aftermath of the 1968 election. Having seen and participated in many election campaigns since then, perhaps some may say that when the PLP finally won I may have experienced a feeling of anticlimax having seen so many political struggles and defeats beforehand.

I was a bit surprised also, but I quickly became aware of why I was feeling that way. The origins lay in the decision of the PLP to call for a boycott of then Premier Sir John Swan’s Independence referendum in 1995 on the question of sovereignty for Bermuda.

I believed then and I still believe that the question of Independence for one’s country is above political loyalty to a political party and even a Government.

I fought hard in that referendum campaign, expressing written opinions against the call by the PLP, then the political Opposition, for a boycott of the referendum.

I and other PLP supporters were referred to by former PLP leader, the late Frederick Wade, as being on the fringe of the party for our opposition to the PLP’s call for a boycott of the referendum.However<$>, it remains my deepest regret that I did not reconcile my political differences with Mr. Wade before he passed away — he was, after all, one of my political mentors. I did not see the party in the same way after that, even though I continued to support it politically. I remember the statement of a female friend of mine who said: “See, you have supported the party all this time and now look — you are going against it.”

She was the only one I expressed my true feelings to on the night the PLP won power and how I was not feeling the way I thought I would feel when the party finally took over from the United Bermuda Party. Perhaps Dr. Brown’s victory — as leader of the PLP and now Premier — has finally allowed me to celebrate political change in Bermuda.

For it was the opinion of many of us that the PLP has not governed on its principles and values fought for when it was the political Opposition.

I remember my political elders, staunch supporters of the party in many ways, the backbone of the PLP’s struggle to win control of the Government, many who did not live to see the PLP finally win power.

I still see some of their faces and I have often wondered what they would have made of the PLP as Government, the cautious way it has chosen to govern over these past eight years.

Would they have recognised it as the same party which had struggled so hard and often, making so many sacrifices?That,<$> in part, is why Mr. Scott lost the Premiership. Yes, the people were not ready when the party fought and lost all those elections between its formation in the early ‘60s and 1998, but they were ready for a PLP Government and that Government should have governed according to its principles and political values it formed when it was the political Opposition.We have heard much of a so-called split in the PLP, but I maintain there was a difference of opinion as to who would be the leader of the party and Premier, but having looked into the abyss in the aftermath of the last election when Dame Jennifer Smith was removed from the Premiership, there was no desire to walk down the same path again.

The opinions of Dame Lois Browne Evans on television and former Premier Scott’s own statement that Cabinet Ministers, who expressed support for Dr. Brown, should step down, did not help his cause.

PLP members and supporters did not want to return to the past with its ruinous conflicts and disunity which had proved so costly to the party.

I am a great believer in signs and premonitions. With the result of this historic election, it is almost as if the PLP and its political supporters have been transported back to the election victory of 1998, when there was so much hope and anticipation. It’s almost as if the chapters in a book of eight years of the PLP governing have been wiped clean. As I said, I am a great believer in signs and it is not lost on me that just as November 11 marked the first official duty for former Premier Smith, so it is that in all likelihood this November 11 observances will mark the first official duty for Premier Brown. A new beginning, a new chapter in the PLP book of Progressive Government.