The late Dame Lois Browne-Evans was fond of telling politicians aggrieved over some slight, real or perceived, that “politics isn’t kindergarten”.

Robert King has just had that lesson forcibly impressed on him after being ousted by his fellow One Bermuda Alliance MPs in a brutal coup.

To some degree, Mr King is the architect of his own misfortune. It was obvious when he was elected as leader of the OBA last September that few of his colleagues were happy to see him in the role. Whatever efforts he has made at bridge building since have clearly been unsuccessful. He seems to have almost no support among the MPs.

Mr King has a reputation for being outspoken and for shooting from the lip and it would seem that this has not gone down well with his colleagues.

But that was also his appeal among the wider membership of the OBA and probably in the broader community as well. That, and a demonstrated desire to listen to and take advice from a wide spectrum of Bermudians, seemed to suggest he was willing to take on the governing Progressive Labour Party in a way his softer-spoken colleagues were not.

While it was inevitable he would make mistakes along the way, it was also reasonable to assume that he would learn from them and would gain stature and gravitas with experience.

Many people will feel that six months was not long enough for Mr King to demonstrate that progress.

It is not yet clear if there was some moment of catharsis that impelled the coup plotters to move now or if they had simply reached the point where they had lined up enough MPs to present Mr King with an ultimatum of “jump or be pushed”.

Either way, the public is likely to see this as a case of severe sour grapes and that is a bad look for the OBA.

Worse, it looks undemocratic.

There has long been a debate among political pundits about whether the legislators should pick their parliamentary leader or if it should be a decision for the wider membership of the party.

There are good arguments on either side. A wider vote gives members a greater stake in the organisation and makes them feel heard. But a leader cannot function without the confidence of his or her fellow legislators. Dame Jennifer Smith learned this in Bermuda in 2003 and recent British political history is replete with examples.

The OBA at its founding decided it would give the wider membership the right to choose its leader, albeit with certain checks and balances.

Having accepted that system when they joined, the current crop of MPs have an obligation to honour the decision of their fellow members, even if they disagree with it. That is, after all, the essence of democracy; you accept the results of a vote even, or especially, when you are on the losing side.

It is correct that the MPs have followed the rules in the OBA constitution for removing a leader. But it is reasonable to assume that this mechanism was designed for when a leader had done something especially egregious. There is no public evidence of this in the King ouster.

Instead, there is every appearance that Ben Smith, the new Opposition leader, and his colleagues decided they did not like the result of September’s vote and used their considerable power to force a change.

This is not quite the end of the story. The OBA’s caucus, made up of the wider leadership and approved candidates of the party, must endorse the MPs’ action and a leadership election among the wider members must then follow.

But members who voted for Mr King six months ago and wish to do so again may be disappointed. A candidate must have the support of three other MPs to get on the ballot and it is not at all clear Mr King can get three of his colleagues to back him.

While that would suggest that Mr Smith will be a shoo-in for the OBA leadership, this is likely to be unpopular with at least some of the membership, who will feel deprived of a choice and are likely to see this as a stitch-up.

It may be that the MPs are calculating that by the time a General Election is called, this unsavoury episode will be a dim memory.

They may be right but that requires an assumption that the new leader of the PLP, who will be chosen in October, will not call an early election to get a personal mandate.

Even if that does not happen — and the OBA MPs’ actions have increased the odds that it will — the Opposition still has work to do.

First, they owe it to their members and to the broader community to explain why they defied their own members’ democratic wishes.

Second, Mr Smith needs to hit the ground running as leader. There are reasons why his own members did not see fit to elect him six months ago. He now needs to prove them wrong.

Third, he needs to first unite his own membership, a substantial number of whom are likely to feel very alienated. Then he needs to weld a disparate series of opposition groupings into a united force capable of taking on the PLP.

A united opposition could have won February’s General Election. A divided one ended up with 11 seats.

He now needs to show that he and his shadow cabinet are willing to take on a government that, frankly, has been able to do more or less what it wanted for the past eight years.

In other words, Mr Smith needs to bring the kind of aggression and desire that Mr King promised. Mr Smith has shown a surprising ruthlessness in disposing of his erstwhile rival. He now needs to show that same personality trait in turning the OBA into a government in waiting rather than a party content to vegetate on the opposition benches.