From bad to worse

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Makai Dickerson can certainly attest to the axiom that a week is a long time in politics.

Seven days ago, he was a rising star in the Progressive Labour Party, picked to take a run at the leader of the Opposition, One Bermuda Alliance.

Now he is no longer a candidate, having withdrawn after the fact he had been arrested for drugs possession, just days before he was announced as a candidate, was made public.

Mr Dickerson will now, hopefully, begin the long road to political rehabilitation. He will presumably be battered and the wiser for it. If public shaming is part of punishment, he has had his fair share.

But the episode also raises questions about the PLP’s judgment, or lack thereof.

First, it remains hard to believe that no one in the party knew about Mr Dickerson’s arrest.

Even if that turns out to be the case, the party’s attempt to keep him on as a candidate made a bad situation worse. The question remains; who made that decision and failed to recognise the gravity of Mr Dickerson’s behaviour.

Certainly, the foolishness of thinking that a person who was planning to admit a criminal act was a viable candidate was remarkable.

That was compounded by the decision to proceed with a press conference on crime, of all things where Mr Dickerson’s problems were bound to come up.

There it seemed clear that National Security Minister Wayne Perinchief was either unaware of the party’s position or was strongly opposed to it, because his remarks were diametrically opposed to the “give him a second chance” approach made by the PLP earlier the same day.

That Mr Perinchief was right does not make things better.

All of this begs the question of who is making decisions in the PLP campaign.

To be sure, the party had developed something of a tradition of having members refusing to resign or apologise for behaviour that would have got them sacked in other parliaments, but that seemed to have dissipated under Premier Paula Cox.

This decision however brought it back. Mr Dickerson should have been made to withdraw immediately his arrest became known..

But by first being apparently unaware that a candidate had been caught with drugs, then failing to demand his withdrawal, and then having him withdraw several days later, the party looks indecisive, morally ambiguous and rudderless.

Does this matter? Mr Dickerson was, after all, running in a seat where he had no chance of winning before this. And a political campaign is different from government.

It does matter. The same values should apply in government as in a campaign. Voters want to know that governments will make decisions based on principles and core beliefs.

And voters want their government to be sure-footed and decisive, not out of touch and prone to policy reversals.

This episode has made the PLP look like a party that is unsure of its moral standing and unable to make decsions and to stick to them.

Just who let this happen is unclear. Parties have campaign committees and campaign managers, branches and selection committees. All may have had a hand in this shamnbles.

But in the end, the buck stops with the party leader, Premier Paula Cox. Ms Cox’s position is already said to be under threat. This episode may end up hurting her most.

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