Dear Sir,

I can now better understand why Jesus uses parables. It was because people just could not get the message.

I wish there were a parable I could use to describe our political quagmire. Let’s take, for example, the Progressive Labour Party’s alleged leadership challenge and the Marc Bean pledge for strengthened anti-corruption measures.

We all know he cannot fulfil that pledge by rearranging the deck chairs, not if gaining public belief or confidence is concerned. He would need the faces of many new persons possessing integrity and knowhow.

Adding the leadership challenge to the anti-corruption pledge brings another dynamic.

There is the old guard and the new, then there is the Brown faction and the Marc dream team. Compounding it all is an old party constitutional construct with processes that everyone bows to as sacrosanct, but which truly hinders innovation.

Bishop Vernon Lambe’s speech at the invite of Mr Bean called for them to break out of the box and stop thinking party at a time when the country needed to engage the people. He may have got a standing ovation but how many would stand in support of his recommendation? The best thing the delegates could do is suspend the rules surrounding selection of leadership and candidates to allow the party to rebrand.

Let’s talk One Bermuda Alliance, whom I refer to as having been given the one chance audition. Its body language isn’t subtle: it’s loud and, for re-election purposes, counterintuitive. Its attempt, as espoused in the run-up to election to be that new contemporaneous party for all, was not even short-lived; it was a blip before it became labelled by the image of its predecessors.

Holding on to the proposition that to go back to the PLP is economic suicide is the mantra. Meanwhile, we will rebuild the old Bermuda we once knew, may augur pride on one side of the Island but produce anguish on the other. It doesn’t have a population to draw on unless it creates a new one and diminishes an old.

What would it need to do to regain faith in its promise? Jimmy Swaggart comes to mind; he cried on international TV, “I’ve sinned.” Big question is, who can be compelling enough to sell the message that they did not forget the mandate which gave the OBA office? It would need to sell that message hard.

In this globally competitive world, image and integrity are important; political and social stability are also very important.

Bermuda is another world, but it’s not the only world, as islands such as Cayman have come online to offer alternative destinations for investment.

People somehow like to be where other people are. A crowded bar or restaurant seem to do nothing wrong except to become crowded all the time.

Bermuda was once that crowded bar, but it isn’t any more and it affects us as a place of investment.

Both parties need to break the box open because as is ruins it for us all.

KHALID WASI