The figurehead of a push to break away from party politics said the public voted for the status quo at the ballot box.

Sir John Swan said he was surprised that none of the island’s independent candidates were able to secure a seat in the House of Assembly given the calls for change that he had heard across the island.

“People are apathetic to change,” he said. “They don’t want to take the risk or feel as though they don’t want to lose their allegiances.”

Sir John said while the One Bermuda Alliance was able to gain seats in the House, the result was essentially a return to 2017 with a “polarised” Parliament.

“When you get less than a 50 per cent vote and you still win the election by that many members, there is something fundamentally wrong, but that is for the next generation,” he said.

“On July 3 this year I am turning 90, so I am not going to try to push my luck any more.”

Sir John, who served as the Premier of Bermuda between 1982 and 1995, threw his name in the hat as an independent candidate for Smith’s North (Constituency 10), but he was unable to secure his return to Parliament winning about 22 per cent of the vote.

Robert King, of the One Bermuda Alliance, the incumbent, won just under 40 per cent of the vote, while Lindsay Simmons, of the Progressive Labour Party, won just under 38 per cent of the vote.

While independent candidates were able to secure more than 9 per cent of the vote overall, Sir John said the reality of the situation was that the PLP won the election.

“The bottom line is we have what we have, the Government is in power for the next five years, so we have to live with whatever they deliver,” he said.

“It’s not a question of my opinion, it is a question of what is, and what is, I think, is that they like the status quo.”

Sir John said that independent candidates had done a great job canvassing their constituencies, but he believed that too many voters were not ready for change.

“Some people saw virtually every constituent in their constituency and they still came third, which tells me that people were saying yes, they support us, they will come out to vote for us, and they didn’t come out,” he said.

Sir John said he believed the concept of independent candidates has merit in the long term, noting that other islands had been watching the election closely.

Asked about the possibility of the introduction of ranked-choice voting, in which voters rank candidates by preference on their ballots, Sir John said that the Government would likely have little interest in such a change.

“If I was in power, why would I want to change the status quo? It works for them” he said. “That’s the reality of it.”