The following analysis of the Bermuda General Election and its immediate aftermath appears at the website KYCNews.

STARVED as we are for entertainment in Bermuda, the 2003 General Election has been the greatest show on earth. Even those who thought the Progressive Labour Party would be unable to manage the economy believed that they could at least manage themselves. How wrong we were.

Late on Thursday, July 24, Jennifer Smith pulled off what no one in the PLP had ever managed, winning re-election for her party. Election and now re-election: Ms Smith was surely the greatest Parliamentarian the socialist PLP had ever produced. Not even Frederick Wade, regarded by the party faithful as the greatest human being to ever walk the earth, had been able to achieve a fraction of what Ms Smith managed.

Yet, within five minutes of her triumph being confirmed, she was informed that her political career was finished. "Et tu Arthur", she might have muttered, if she had had the faintest idea of what was going on.

Ms Smith was a victim of a carefully planned two-year campaign that PLP insiders credit to Arthur Hodgson, a former Parliamentarian who had unsuccessfully challenged her for the party leadership a couple of years ago. Hodgson, a Rhodes scholar, is a dyed-in-the-wool socialist, of the 1965 variety.

Mr. Hodgson was encouraged to run against Ms Smith, crushed by the obscure branch delegate system that she controlled, and then forced out of politics altogether. Ms Smith then turned her attention to manipulating the Bermuda Constitution, to give her complete control over every aspect of the political system. Party members dared not breathe without her express permission.

A pragmatist in office, she all but abandoned the PLP's political strategy, developed in the mid-1960s and adhered to like Elmer's glue. Independence, the central element of party policy, was shelved when it became plain that it would bankrupt Bermuda and reduce it to the economic status of a Haiti or a Cuba.

Mr. Hodgson and his chief co-conspirators, Ewart Brown and Terry Lister, laid their plans carefully.

When the General Election was called unexpectedly, to defeat their machinations, they mustered their forces. A detailed plan to subvert the course of justice went into operation.

PLP supporters in Ms. Smith's own Parliamentary constituency were primed to vote against her, to ensure a power vacuum when the party won the election. Having redesigned the constituency boundaries to suit themselves, the PLP could not lose, but the hated middle-of-the-road Ms Smith had to be forced out.

SHE barely campaigned in her own constituency - in fact the whole party failed to bother to campaign, so certain was it of victory. In the event, that proved correct. With just 51.9 percent of the popular vote, it secured 61 percent of the constituencies.

The party won one seat more than the plotters had hoped for. Not enough party supporters who had always voted PLP could bring themselves to vote UBP, even to defeat Ms Smith. She won by eight votes, and the coup almost came unravelled there and then.

Informed that 11 of the 22 newly elected PLP members would not support her, Ms Smith considered her options. She may have asked herself if it was coincidence that the 11 dissidents were all middle-aged heterosexual men. Those loyal to her were mostly women, two of them very ill and old men and one a newcomer, a reporter who sees no conflict of interest between his job and his Parliamentary position.

On the Friday, in defiance of the rebels, Ms Smith announced her Cabinet.

The rebels were enraged. They must have begun to wonder if their political lives were over. She offered positions in the Cabinet to two of them, in an attempt to defang her opposition, but both declined, believing themselves better served by remaining with the rebels.

The announced Cabinet was a shambles, and within 48 hours, it had been made plain to Ms Smith that either she resigned, or the party would lose the ensuing re-run general election. What undid her was the betrayal of her most loyal supporter and handbag carrier, the so-called "Colonel" David Burch.

Offered a Cabinet post by the rebels, he informed Ms Smith that her political career was at an end. She may or may not receive a damehood, and having no skills other than the political, will vanish into an early and frustrated retirement. Bermuda's greatest politician is now its least important citizen.

At two four-hour meetings of the party faithful, the alternatives were starkly spelled out: patch it up or cause the demise of the PLP.

WITH neither group willing to yield, a compromise candidate, Alex Scott, stepped forward and was elected Premier. He is unwell and could well step down shortly, in favour of the new deputy leader, Ewart Brown.

In due course, the compromise will fail and another General Election will be needed. In that the rebels lied not only to the public but also to their own party workers, it is hard to see how any of them can ever again present themselves as candidates of integrity.

The PLP's first victory was heralded as proof that democracy thrives in Bermuda. The second victory proves that, far from being a democracy, Bermuda is a kleptocracy, in which elections may be stolen without consequence. God help us.

The worst is yet to come.