It has been little over a year since the PLP won its second term of government. During that time the party has been bombarded with complaints, some of which have the potential of being very serious but most of which have been rather frivolous. This is to be expected when a political party is facing an Opposition with access to considerable sums of private money and the benefit of a very supportive news media.

To an outsider analysing Bermuda's political history, it must come as a surprise that the political party that represents the racial majority had to toil so long in the political wilderness in order to accomplish what an outsider unfamiliar with Bermuda would no doubt conclude was a rather obvious expectation. After all, since the Island adopted Universal Adult Suffrage in 1966, it should have been a foregone conclusion that the majority black population would win the government. In fact, the election of 1968 was supposed to bring the second emancipation of the black majority. This view held that there would be a second emancipation when the racial majority were elected to Parliament and repealed the laws and policies that were designed to limit their economic progress.

However, the first election under Universal Adult Suffrage did not even deliver a black majority. The UBP won 30 of the 40 seats contested and formed the first government under the new Party System. However, within the UBP Parliamentary group, there were a total of 23 whites. Hence Bermuda's white population remained firmly in control with respect to what mattered most to them - control of the very lucrative Bermuda economy.

This fact was little appreciated by Bermuda's black majority. They had always defined political progress in terms of how many of their race was elected to Parliament and this number had never even approached a majority.

In fact, blacks were so concerned about achieving this minimal representation that they measured progress before universal adult suffrage in terms of getting one more of their number in Parliament, not in getting the majority of the existing seats. Such being the case, the role of the black Parliamentarian was simply to point out to the white political leadership the areas of segregated society that they considered most in need of change.

This attitude began to change with the arrival of Dr. E. F. Gordon from the island of Trinidad and Tobago. A man who was not only a brilliant physician but also a master strategist, ‘Doc' was able to promote, what was considered at the time, revolutionary changes in Bermuda society. Perhaps the most important of these accomplishments was the establishment of the Bermuda Industrial Union as an aggressive, powerful force for political as well as other aspects of social change. There can also be no doubt that the formation of the Bermuda Industrial Union facilitated the formation of Bermuda's first political party, the Progressive Labour Party.

The PLP contested its first election in 1963 and elected five people to Parliament. The success of the PLP led to the formation of the United Bermuda Party, by Sir Henry Tucker, from among the sitting members of Parliament. Since these events took place within a few years of each other, the Bermuda voting public did not really have time to comprehend and internalise what had taken place. Both races went to the polls and voted just as they had always done. They voted for anyone who supported their racial and economic interests.

Dr. Manning in his landmark work dealing with political and voting behaviour in Bermuda, pointed out that for whites, the economic and racial goals that obsessed all Bermudians were in harmony. Bermuda's white leadership controlled the political administration as well as all the major locally owned businesses such as the banks, insurance companies, the utilities and virtually all the news media. Hence, there was no difficulty for whites to pursue economic advancement and yet maintain their racial solidarity.

For blacks, the widely held belief of the need for racial solidarity to achieve equality of opportunity was always under threat from the need for economic advancement. How could one pursue a strategy designed to bring about racial equality, which would necessarily mean some displacement of whites in positions of privilege, while at the same time trying to accumulate assets which would require the active cooperation of the same white owners of the banks and most major businesses? Hence the so-called “inability of blacks to stick together” was simply a reflection of a basic conflict that all blacks faced when trying to accomplish both racial and economic goals simultaneously.

If one understands this background, it is easy to appreciate why so many prominent blacks joined the UBP with the stated goal “we're going to change things from the inside”. I rather think that their desire was not so much an intention of changing things from the inside but a fear of the very real threats from the white leadership who controlled the purse strings both in the government and the economy. These were powerful levers available to secure black support. When these factors are appreciated, it is easy to see why the PLP took so long to gain the reigns of government.

What changed things? To put the matter simply, the money ran out. The UBP leadership found it increasingly difficult to provide economic rewards in its quest to woo black support. It is no wonder that Khalid Wasi complained after the PLP won the election of November, 1998 that “we (the UBP) lost because the party had done nothing for us (the black members of the UBP)”.

Actually the problems facing the UBP were much more complex than that. The Island itself was facing more and more external competition and it was becoming increasingly difficult to recruit and promote on a basis of anything other than competence. The Civil Service that had once facilitated much of the racism that abounded had gradually become black dominated. Blacks were learning to lie about their political affiliations in order to prevent this factor from hindering their economic advancement. And, of course, the PLP was becoming much more effective in the management of its party organs and in its criticism of Government policies.

On the eve of the 1998 election, according to the UBP and the more conservative print media, the election of the PLP would almost certainly cause the international companies to bolt. This turned out to be correct! The international companies have bolted to Bermuda not away from it. Why has this happened?

The international companies are increasingly attracted to Bermuda because it has reached a point of accommodation with the political reality. The situation with a white minority in control of the Government was simply too dangerous especially when it was clear that the minority was systematically excluding the black majority, including its own supporters who were black, from any meaningful participation in Bermuda's lucrative economy. The international businessmen had seen this situation many times in other countries and knew that it was politically explosive.

With the advent of the PLP to power, it has become less and less likely that either race will be wooed to the UBP by promises of individual opportunity. To the extent that this conclusion is correct, the future organisation of the major political parties should be based less and less on race and more and more on political ideology. This is not only likely to happen, it must happen, if the social stability we now enjoy is to develop and continue to flourish.

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