Discrediting independents and third-party voices

Beyond the One Bermuda Alliance as the Official Opposition, the Progressive Labour Party government has aimed to discredit independent candidates and third parties — especially during election cycles. In 2020, for example, the Free Democratic Movement and several independents challenged the PLP, and they were labelled as long shots; vote-splitters at worst. In 2025, the PLP’s approach to independents continued: “Don’t waste your vote on them; they can’t win” and “A vote for an independent is a vote for the OBA”. We saw this in David Burt’s pre-election remarks, which explicitly framed any vote for an independent as a back-door vote for the dreaded OBA. This message was echoed on the ground and in the media, as many urged voters to stick with the “safe” PLP choice rather than empowering any “fringe” elements.

This is not a new strategy. Warning undecided and swing voters against vote-splitting is a common tactic in politics. But in Bermuda’s context, it has resulted in the near-total marginalisation of alternative voices. The 2020 snap election, which the Premier called two years early, catching opponents and the voting public off-guard, delivered the PLP a resounding 30-6 victory and snuffed out the fledgeling third party. Since then, PLP leaders have governed as if opposition of any kind — whether within Parliament, in the media, youth advocacy groups, independents and more — is unnecessary. Independent candidates, for example, are not just defeated at the polls; they are subtly discredited as irrelevant or an untenable option for Bermuda’s political landscape.

This sustained campaign to delegitimise anyone outside the two-party paradigm narrows the choices for Bermudians, marginalises the intelligentsia and fundamentally entrenches the PLP’s power. It is a cynical and destructive strategy. Publicly, the Premier may speak of “unity and inclusion”, and invite fringe groups, advocates and more for discussions, but there is a deliberate, but unspoken norm — unity counts substantially only if you are united behind the PLP. As soon as independents or third-party advocates challenge the ruling party’s narrative, they are painted as spoilers — or conveniently ignored once the election is over.

Tellingly, after the 2025 election victory, the Premier did offer to meet with independents to “hear their ideas”, but only after the PLP had secured another five years in power. The gesture came once independents no longer posed any threat to PLP dominance.

Contempt for the opposition voters: speeches in Parliament

In a March 2023 parliamentary speech that shocked many, the Minister of Economy and Labour declared that he did not even want the votes of certain unnamed people. Jason Hayward, on the House floor, exclaimed: “I don’t want your vote! For what, so you feel like you have some control or say over what I do in the future?” This astonishing statement — essentially telling Bermudians that their votes (and by extension, their voices) don’t matter if they’re not PLP votes — drew immediate backlash. Opposition MP Michael Dunkley pointed out the obvious: these words “trashed” Mr Burt’s own calls for unity and “would deter international investment” by projecting instability. The OBA chairman lambasted Mr Hayward’s statement, calling it “a slap in the face of the electorate” and warning that “to say you don’t need anyone’s vote is arrogant” in a democracy.

Mr Hayward’s rant did not come out of thin air; it was a distilled version of a world view that seems to have taken root in the ruling party. In the same speech, he went further — invoking the experiences of African leaders Robert Mugabe and Nelson Mandela to justify an unwillingness to co-operate with the opposition. Mugabe, Mr Hayward noted, initially tried to work with those who had opposed him and “quickly found out that was impossible”, implying that one must vanquish rivals to succeed. Mandela’s inclusive approach in South Africa, he argued, was “undermined by one group of individuals” — a thinly veiled reference to how Bermuda’s opposition (whom the PLP often makes analogy to as an unrepentant old guard) will never act in the Government’s best interest. The moral Mr Hayward drew was chilling: “We sit here in Bermuda and think our reality is going to be different?” In other words, attempting bipartisanship or inclusivity is naive; better to govern unilaterally for your base.

However, Mr Hayward’s remarks also allude to racial hostility in Bermuda. The statement “I don’t want your vote” is obviously divisive language. Yet, the context of the overall speech changes the way audiences should interpret this phrase in a significant way. He Hayward was not just fuelling populist rhetoric, but also reacting to White resentment towards Blackness in Bermuda with an anecdote about experiencing violence and hostility while canvassing. In this lens, the minister’s/Premier’s decision to offer an apology for the statement instead of using this anecdote as a learning opportunity to unpack racial relations in Bermuda gives more evidence of inaction on racial progress. They borrow radical rhetoric, and have yet to learn from it.

This philosophy can be also interpreted as profoundly undemocratic. The PLP, by invoking racially charged narratives, is using a classic authoritative tactic — painting the Opposition and its voters as the pre-eminent representation of an unequal system. Structural and interpersonal racism do exist in Bermuda.

However, the PLP is often using rather shallow racial rhetoric to delegitimise anyone who does not buy into its vision — namely opposition voters — while effectively preventing any real progression on race and racism in Bermuda. By focusing on narrow and politically charged racial narratives while systematically ignoring real racial justice policy — ie, reparations, gender justice, misogynoir, decolonial education and healthcare, climate justice — the PLP only deepens racio-political divides.

The implications of this new age divide? A multilayered version of the “us versus them” with new frontiers creating categories of Bermudians who are persona non grata or effectively “non-Bermudian” — such as academics, students and activists who speak truth to power — while they govern exclusively for their base. This reveals a government that has abandoned even the pretence of representing all Bermudians. As the OBA’s Aguinaldo Medeiros queried in response to Mr Hayward’s outburst, “does the party sincerely and fully intend to represent all the people of Bermuda… or is it [their] modus operandi to just pander to [their] base… to form a government by the people but not for the people?”

It’s a damning question and one Bermuda’s leaders have yet to answer convincingly.

Old tactics in new hands

There is a rich irony in the PLP’s trajectory. This is the party that once fought for inclusion, fairness and an end to unchecked, one-party rule by the old United Bermuda Party. Yet now in power for most of the past 25 years, the PLP is exhibiting the very tactics it used to condemn. During the UBP’s reign, PLP opposition figures decried how dissenting voices were excluded and how policies catered to a select few. Today, it is the PLP leadership marginalising dissent and governing with a winner-takes-all mentality. Indeed, some observers note that “the PLP today ... is closer to the UBP than the OG PLP”. The hypocrisy is palpable: the champions of democracy past have become the consolidators of power in the present.

Examples abound. The UBP was infamous for dismissing calls for change — now the PLP shrugs off any critique as “un-Bermudian” or irrelevant. The UBP era was marked by racialised rhetoric and division — now the PLP leverages similar divisive narratives, casting anyone in opposition as villains undermining the country. Whereas the UBP’s dominance for more than 30 years was once viewed by the PLP as unhealthy for democracy, today the same party seems quite comfortable with its own near-total domination of Parliament. The double standard has not gone unnoticed by the public. Even staunch PLP supporters have quietly expressed discomfort at the party’s intolerance of internal debate, and independents have lamented that Bermuda’s political climate is as hostile as ever to new voices.

Lord Acton wrote that “ power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Perhaps equally true is that power can make reformers forget their own political party’s ideological roots and history.

We are witnessing a democratic erosion in Bermuda. The ruling party silenced its own members, demonising opponents and openly scoffing at the need to earn every citizen’s support, just as Donald Trump did during the 2024 presidential election. This is a textbook case of democratic norms under threat. One international analyst warned that would-be autocrats thrive by weakening checks and balances, suppressing dissent and “damaging the opposition parties” while keeping just enough of a democratic façade to convince you that things haven’t changed.

Bermuda may still have free elections and an opposition on paper, but the spirit of democratic competition is being steadily hollowed out by this generation of politicians, along with their enablers, allies and co-conspirators.

In our previous articles, we spoke of creeping authoritarian tendencies in the suppression of information, disdain for the free press, punishing internal dissenters, and discrediting the Official Opposition. This combined with what we have explored in this article demonstrate that the erosion of democratic norms is no longer an abstraction. It is happening in Cabinet offices, on the floor of Parliament and in the messages that voters hear every day.

If this trend continues — if dissenting voices within the PLP remain afraid to speak, if opposition MPs and their voters are dismissed as nonentities — Bermuda risks drifting into a de facto one-party state. That is a destination no Bermudian should want. Silencing dissent and delegitimising opposition may tighten a leader’s grip in the short term, but it ultimately loosens the bonds of trust and accountability that hold a democracy together.

It is incumbent on all who cherish our democracy to call out and challenge these antidemocratic patterns consistently, and thus in our next article we offer some methods and solutions for fighting authoritarianism.

• Taj Donville-Outerbridge and Tierrai Tull represent Bermuda Youth Connect. Taj is an award-winning Bermudian human rights activist, writer and student studying a double masters of public administration and global affairs at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He also has a decade of involvement in Bermuda’s political system under his belt. He can be reached via Instagram @_king.taj_ and e-mail at tdonvilleouterbridge@yahoo.com. Tierrai is the founder of Bermuda Youth Connect, studying at Oxford in the Department of Politics and International Relations on the Rhodes Scholarship